She insisted such claims were “unfair” and “biased”. Shiwen said the doping row surrounding her in London had inspired her to a second Olympic gold medal with victory in the 200m medley.

Shiwen, 16, swam to victory in the women's 200m individual medley with a time of 2 minutes and 57.07 seconds, beating Australia's Alicia Coutts into second place and America's Caitlin Leverenz into third and also making another world record.

Afterwards, Shiwen insisted, “I don't feel upset or sad about what the media have been saying about me. I feel calm, but it just encouraged me to prove myself. Of course, I think the comments are a bit unfair towards me, but I am not affected.”

When asked if she had ever taken a banned substance, “Absolutely not,” she said, “I do two-and-a half hours (training) every morning, two-and-a-half hours every afternoon and I have trained for nine years….I think in other countries people have won multiple medals and no one says anything about them, so why should they say these things about me? There is likely to be more good (Chinese) swimmers coming behind me because others have the same potential that I have.”

The swimmer’s father have hit out at “biased” suspicions.

Her father told a Chinese news portal, “A lot of different people had to provide all kinds of help for this result to be possible,” said Ye Qingsong, urging doubters to “look at her (drug) test results.”

“It's normal for people to be suspicious,” he added, saying “Western media has always been arrogant, and suspicious of Chinese people.”