Lets get it out there. Who thought, "Impossible."
I do.
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Just watched the race. Noticed she was the only swimmer that breathed every stroke in the fly, she also had less undulation then the others and used a mild kick. Was behind and out of view for the back, but from viewing above it looked like she was barely kicking there too. The free, well, I wish I could do a 50 with her finishing split.
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Dispite your likely intellectual sounding accent, You are the dumby I am referring to Graham. :)
Probably the same drug that helped......
I'm german and have loved swimming since my youth-but the east german doping scandals of the early 80's affected me as a spectator.Now I usually am suspicious first when I see out of nowhere athletes perform unheard of feats-kinda takes the joy out of watching the sport sometimes.
Which makes me wonder about the Lithuanian *** stroke swimmer---is a 15 yr old seriusly going to whoop Soni and co.'s butt?
Yeah but being part German myself, I remember when Phelps won 8 Gold medals 4 years ago. In a German triathlon forum no one acknowledged his achievements. Instead they all accused him of doping which the German media does all the time, except when Biedermann or Steffen win. Then it's oddly all fair play(not to mention when Franzi van Almsick won silver at age 14 and broke the 200m freestyle world record and won Gold at the age of 16).
I prefer giving these athletes the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, but young breaststroke phenoms have been common at past Olympics. Anita Nall won a silver and a bronze in '92 at 14, Amanda Beard won two silvers in '96 at age 14, Megan Quann won a gold in 2000 at age 16.
I remember a long discussion in rec.sport.swimming in the late 90s about how the women's breaststrokes had effectively become a race for girls. There seems to be a 12-18 month window between the final puberty growth spurt and when the girls Get Hips where there's a lot of fast swimming and then a struggle to get back to those times again about the time they're old enough to get a US driver's license. Some like Amanda Beard eventually get their new bodies figured out; others quietly fade away from the sport.
I think it is at least naive to think this is just "awesome swimming." Maybe it is overly skeptical to think it is doping. Looking at these Chinese swimmers their form is marginal, their walls terrible, and starts worse. I just counted one Chinese girl in the 200 triple breathe all through her 200 free prelim, same with Yang. There have been other Olympics where the Chinese have gone wild in the pool. If it looks too good to be true, maybe it is.
I don’t think in the history of Olympic or international competition has the winning female swimmer ever swum faster than the winning male swimmer in the last 50 in a comparative race.
In this case I would rather be wrong defending than accusing, but then I have only been in this sport for several years and still naive in assuming.
I feel she just has the best genes for the event (i.e skin properties, weight distribution, proportions, strength, etc), as well as having a good swim.
Chance is on their side for a palpable reason.
