Chinese swimming team leader: Ye Shiwen's success is expected
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E-mail Xinhua, July 31, 2012
LONDON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen's success at the London Games had aroused lots of questions from foreign medias, however, the team leader of the Chinese swimming team Xu Qi said Monday that Ye's good result was expected.
"Ye Shiwen's result was expected," he said. "It is a little bit better than we had hoped, but not surprising."
Ye stunned the world at the London Olympic Games when she won the gold medal in the 400 meters individual medley and set a world record time of four minutes 28.43 seconds, knocking over a second off the previous record, which had been held by Australian Stephanie Rice and five seconds off her own personal best.
What made Ye's win all the more incredible is that she swam the last 50 meters of the race faster than men's 400 meters medley winner Ryan Lochte had done earlier Saturday.
However, Xu called the camparison between the American star and the teenger girl meaningless.
"To compare Ye's result with Lochte's is meaningless," he said. "Ye was behind after 300m and she need to try her best to win the race, but Lochte had already established the lead before the freestyle and didn't need to do his upmost."
Some foreign medias questioned how Ye could produce such an incredible feat, and Xu said: "Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the Beijing Games, and American swimmer Missy Franklin is also incredible. Why can't China have a talented swimmer?"
"The improvement of Chinese swimming is the reward of our efforts in many years," he added. "And we also have good coaches from different countries, who gave us lots of help."
Ye is also quite hopeful in the 200m medley and following her comfortable win in her heat Monday, Ye was asked about the question and rejected any accusations outright.
"There is no doping, the Chinese team has always had a firm anti-doping policy," she said.
On Sunday night she had put her win and world record down to hard work and training.
"I think that we have good and scientific training: that is why we progress. I'm very lucky because from childhood we have trained in a very scientific way, so it is not difficult for me to work hard," said Ye, who took up swimming at an age of 6 after a kindergarten teacher had spotted her big hands and directed her parents to the pool. Enditem
