Sour Grapes

Ye Shiwen.

Better remember the name, people, because if this 16-year old swimmer's recent Gold medal-winning performance in the women's 400m individual medley during the London Olympics last Saturday night are anything to go by, her name will be popping up in many more Olympic games to come, barring any sudden retirements, loss of form, injuries etc.

She apparently swam a section of her race faster than US swimming stars Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps (he of the eye-popping eight gold medal haul in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and legendary diet plan). Not only did she break defending champion Stephanie Rice's world record, but she did so more than a second quicker than Rice's previous best.
During the freestyle leg of the race she clocked in at 25.75 seconds - putting Michael Phelps' own freestyle time during his own individual medley race to shame.
Lochte was clearly impressed with the teenager, stating that she had what it took to beat him in a race. Lochte's mentor, US swimming team coach Gregg Troy hailed her performance as 'a heck of a swim'.

Clearly, a star in the pool was born last weekend. But when I read an article on the internet about it, the headline and the last few lines made me roll my eyes. The article was titled Swim Starlet Sets Off Chinese Whispers and towards the article's conclusion was the mention of China's drug-tainted past when it came to swimming.
The writer, Steve Larkin, is from the Australian Associated Press. I hate to point fingers but to me, he seems bitter that Rice (who is Australian) was beaten by a youngster in her pet event. Don't take my word for it, the comments generated by the article were a mixture of support for Shiwen (some users lambasted the article, claiming that it reeked of sour grapes, childish accusations and to some degree, racism) and people who are adamant that Shiwen wasn 'on the juice'. Some readers also slammed the Australian media and public in general, calling them narrow-minded sore losers who try to come up with excuses to justify our athletes' losses and show total disrespect towards winners from other nations.

Me personally, I say congratulations to Ye Shiwen on an impressive, gold medal-worthy performance, even if it came at the expense of my fellow Aussie in Stephanie Rice, and unless something comes out, I am not going to sit here and accuse her of being 'roided up'. Why throw such heinous accusations without any proof to back it up? To his credit, Larkin also mentioned that in the 2010 Asian Games, Shiwen blitzed the same event some two seconds faster than Rice managed in last Saturday's swim so he does recognise the fact that she really is talented, rather than some roid head who can't perform without her precious drugs. Still, the headline of his article and adding in that ugly factoid about Chinese swimmers doesn't let him off the hook that easily.

Yes, it does suck to see your compatriot lose during the Olympics but it's still the early stages, people. There are still plenty of opportunities for your respective nations to strike gold. Even Rice herself vowed to put this loss behind her and move on. Let's do the same, and in the meantime take our hats off to a deserved winner.