On The Eve Of Battle In Istanbul... Craig Lord Takes Another Shot At Ye Shiwen

Craig Lord's Thinly Veiled Attack

Speed Endurance 11 point rebuttal

1 - Interesting decision to highlight Michael Phelps, who split 29.88 and 28.44 on the final 100m. Seems strange not to mention Phelps' second 50m. Despite not being in great 400 IM shape, his final 50m was still half a second faster than Ye, who incidentally has been back ending her races for years.

2 - Ye Shiwen split 28.93 to finish her 400 IM in London. Rebecca Adlington split 28.91 to finish her 800 free in Shanghai a year before. Number of doping accusations on the sly against Adlington - 0.

3 - Lord gives no context to the race. You would think Ye Shiwen pipped Lochte to the men's gold. She didn't, she ended up 23 seconds behind Lochte. News flash, CL. Lochte swam the race entirely differently to Ye Shiwen. He split an incredible 1:56.8 at 200m, Ye Shiwen turned in 2:11.7 (which in real terms would have been approx. 25m behind Lochte).

4 - Fact 1 - Ye Shiwen crushed all other women's freestyle splits in the 400 IM final. Fact 2 - Caitlin Leverenz (=6th) was over a second faster than all other women's splits breaststroke splits in the 400 IM final. Fact 3 - Ryan Lochte was 2.32 seconds clear of the rest of the field at 200m in the men's 400 IM final. All incredible feats.

5 - It's that C word again (not that one). Context. Re-watch the 200 and 400 free finals. They were brutal and both are entirely different races to the 400 IM. The 400 IM is a tough, tough race, but it also involves four different strokes and different muscle fatigue. The comparison to the 200 and 400 free is not as clear-cut as Craig Lord would lead you to believe.

In the 200 free, a race that generally involves early speed and then hanging on for dear life, Allison Schmitt blazed through the first 100m in 55.38. 55.38 is a world class 100m free time. Seven of the eight finalists split sub-57 seconds at 100m, no kidding they finished the race slower than Ye Shiwen. The 400 free, a more tactical race than the 200 requiring close to maximum effort the entire distance, there was no let-up in pace. The top 6 all split 2:00 or faster at 200m.

6 - Schmitt split 55.38 and every 50m from that point on was slower. Muffat was a full 1.5 seconds behind Schmitt at 150m, an insurmountable distance. Ye Shiwen had an Elizabeth Beisel-shaped carrot to chase down on the penultimate lap of the 400 IM, she then got clear and was pulling away on the final lap. Ask any swimmer how it feels to be pulling away at the end of a race, you feel unstoppable. Now try quantifying that when there is an Olympic gold medal to be won at the end of the pool.

7 - See point 5. 400 free is an entirely different race to the 400 IM.

8 - Ye Shiwen's best freestyle times of 55.38 and 1:58.77 are world class times for an IM specialist. I'll repeat, an IM specialist. Camille Muffat has faster times than Ye Shiwen because Muffat is one of the best freestylers the sport of swimming has ever seen. She also focuses entirely on freestyle races... the entire race, not just the final 50m or 100m.

9 - Singling out Ye Shiwen is unfair, especially when Katie Ledecky, Ruta Meilutyte, Missy Franklin, Dana Vollmer, Florent Manaudou, Chad le Clos, Yannick Agnel and Allison Schmitt all made huge improvements this year. I counter your arguments and make no excuses for it.

10 - China had a huge drug problem in the 1990s. 40 positive tests in the 1990s is a terrible record. How has their record been in recent years? How has China's record compared to the US in recent years? What about Brazil's record? 

Ye Shiwen was born in 1996. Two years before Rome 1994 and two years after the infamous bust at the Australian airport in 1998. That was 14 years ago. Since then China has held a home Olympics and has implemented a strict drug testing regime that unearthed a drugs cheat in Li Zhesi shortly before the games. In the last 14 years USA has produced Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin, Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens to name a notable few. Sadly drug cheaters existed before, they exist currently and they will continue to exist. However, it is unfair to continue to tarnish all Chinese (female) success with the drug label. Strange how the Chinese men don't come in for the same scrutiny that the women do.

11 - Scratching of heads? Is that all that is happening here. If this was simply a case of head scratching why bring up China's doping past? Why bring up East Germany's doping? Why not offer any alternative arguments that might explain Ye Shiwen's final 100m split.

Let's call a spade a spade. Craig Lord's article is as close to an accusation that Ye Shiwen's swim was a drug-enhanced aberration that you can get without actually using the exact words. This is despite no positive tests, a 16 year old making progress, a strong track record from previous years, a clear back-end race strategy from previous years and a comparable split from a female swimmer in the 800 free in Shanghai.

Craig Lord appears desperate for Ye Shiwen to become his very own Lance Armstrong-story. He wants to make it known that he knew all along that Ye Shiwen was doping. It worked for David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, two journalists who never gave up the hunt against Lance Armstrong. It all sounds so reasonable. Except one small point. There is a strong probability that Ye Shiwen is entirely innocent. She is also a 16 years old girl preparing for a big race tomorrow, and once again has to deal with unfounded claims on the eve of a global competition. 

Craig Lord wants a level playing field in swimming. How does singling Ye Shiwen out a day before she races in the 400 IM achieve this?

Thoughts from the European Swimming Championships - Day Six

-  21.36

Fred Bousquet just swam one of the most impressive 50m Freestyles of all-time. In a pair of jammers that make him feel naked, he absolutely crushed the 50m Freestyle field in the semi-final. The power Bousquet has is phenomenal.



Bousquet and coach Brett Hawke must be feeling pretty good right now. If you didn't catch it back in May 2009 there was quite a spat between Hawke and Swimnews' Craig Lord. This article on Swimnews led to this reaction from Brett Hawke and later this retort on Swimnews.

Its clear (to me at least) that Bousquet is, and was in 2009, in the shape of his life. He has taken the 50m Free into a new era. Alex Popov's 21.64 was the textile best time until this year, to be 0.28 seconds under that mark is phenomenal.

What will we see from Cesar Cielo, Nathan Adrian, Ashley Callus and Eamon Sullivan at Pan Pacs this week? Will anyone, most obvious contender being Cielo, be able to better Bousquet's time?

- Paul Biedermann must have been reading 'Thoughts from Day Three' where I doubted he would end up ranked no. 1 in the world on 200m Freestyle. All it took was the added incentive of racing Yannick Agnel for Biedermann (1:45.47) to knock half a second off his individual final time and have a strong chance of leading the world for the rest of this year.

That was step 1 on Biedermann's 3-step plan to prove his doubters wrong. Still to crack... 2.) Get down to 1:44 and challenge Phelps and Thorpe's best textile times and 3.) Win the World Championships in 2011.

Hats off to the German and French teams for making Biedermann vs Agnel a possibility. They could have easily put both men on the final legs but I suspect that both men requested the lead off leg.

Its becoming increasingly clear that Biedermann thrives on competition, it plays right into his hands. On the 200m he tends to hang with the pace on the first 100 before taking over on the third 50m and pulling away on the final 50m. The stronger the field, the stronger the pace on the first 100m.

... So I'm just going to say it, he's a big time swimmer... Just makes a showdown with Phelps even more enticing.

- Biedermann's lead off time was the main story of the 4 x 200m Free relay but Russia's victory is noteworthy. Because they lack 'star power' (and easily pronounceable names), the Russian team will likely be overlooked when it comes to future freestyle relays at the World Champs/Olympics but the fact is they have incredible strength in depth. The 4 x 100m team's slowest leg was Andrey Grechin's 48.32. Lets see what the US and Australia can muster at Pan Pacs this week.

- Just can't stop talking about this relay... Jeremy Stravius, the Backstroker, swam an incredible 1:45.44 for the French team. Faster than Danila Izotov's split.

- Good job Dragos Agache on the 50m Breaststroke (Silver in 27.47). Nice to see some success for the Romanian men now that Razvan Florea and Dragos Coman are out of the picture. The star of Romanian swimming for many years, Olympic champion Camelia Potec, announced before the competition that she will be deciding on her future in the sport after Budapest.

- Aliaksandra Herasimenia won the women's 50m Backstroke in a new textile best time of 27.64. Unfortunately it doesn't move me in the slightest. Herasimenia was banned for two years for a doping violation in 2003.

What to do with the non-textile suit WRs

Great discussion (video below) on the fate of the non-textile WRs set in 2008-2009. This is without doubt the best discussion so far on this issue. Craig Lord and Garrett McCaffrey presented their points superbly. Both made valid arguments for an issue that has no easy answer. One thing is for sure, we need more of this sort of discussion in the swimming world.

Here's my take.... I believe we should have one set of official World Records and they should be as they stand now. These are the records to have on the top of timesheets, the WR line on TV, prize money at World Cups/Mare Nostrum etc.

The Polyurethane suits have already taken too much attention away from the swimmers, we cannot continue to keep having to mention in every race report about textile and non-textile suits. The sport needs to move on. We have the refreshing prospect of having race reports in 2010 that list just the times and places. The sport has seen a resurgence in the public domain, having the Duel in the Pool televised live on BBC here in the UK was a great sign of how the sport is thriving, and I do not believe that the casual viewer will put up with 2 sets of records with the difference between them having to be continually explained.

We should also not forget that these WRs were set legally under FINA rules. It would be unjust to have these swimmers achievements wiped from the record books, or tainted by listing a second set of times next to them. By doing this we would be in danger of insinuating the suits as a form of cheating which they were not.

Without trying to go back on myself, I still do believe there is a place for the pre-Non Textile suit WRs. They are useful to have for those who follow swimming closely as a gauge of how fast swimmers are in relation to semi-comparable times. I do not see a problem in declaring if a swim has broken the fastest non-textile time, or if a swimmer has just swum the 3rd fastest non-Tech suit time ever etc., in fact I would encourage it. As Craig Lord points out in the interview, we do not want to crush the aspirations of younger swimmers who may believe they will never break a WR. If they can gain a certain level of recognition for breaking a textile fastest time, hopefully they can use this and aim for the Tech suit time. If the goal is so far fetched, the example was Kukors' 2:06 in the Women's 200IM, then some swimmers may lose hope. If they have Yanyan Wu's 2:09.72 as the first hurdle, hopefully the journey to breaking the 2:06 mark may seem less daunting.

Whatever your view on the current state of the WRs. Its a discussion that needs to continue.