I'm not a swimming expert, but Lochte's overall time was 23 seconds faster than Ye's. Ye also won the 200 IM by less than a second over than the 2nd place finisher, and the 400 IM by under 3 seconds over the 2nd place finisher.
right, and it's his overall 23 seconds of victory that make his slower-than-hers last 100m so weird.
her overall time isn't out of the question, just like Ledecky's overall time isn't out of the question. it's that unreal last 100 that's so strange. she was about a second behind Beisel going into the last 100 and beat her by 3 seconds. did she not try for the first 300m?
it's strange. that's all i'm saying.
and, in comparison, Sun Yang obliterated everyone in the men's 1500 and crushed his world record. but NO ONE things Sun Yang is doing anything remiss.
It is certainly possible that China may have come up with a new PED that is not being tested for by the IOC. But if that were the case why wouldn't they have more swimmers getting crazy results at these games? Would they really just use Ye as some kind of test subject and take the chance that the IOC won't discover their new enhancement before the next Olympics? Knowing the importance that China places on Olympic success it just doesn't make sense to me that they wouldn't go for as many golds as they can get right now.
this is a good point. i think what also happened to Ye was that her swim was on the first day of the meet. and i think many people who have followed swimming got the feeling that, "oh no, here we go again ..." and we were about to see a series of unbelievable times like the GDR in the 70s and 80s and like China in the early 1990s (especially the world championships in 1994).
that didn't turn out to be the case. China had a good meet, but a meet on par with how they've done in the past. their superstar Sun Yang delivered, and they've gradually become more and more competitive. it does feel legit for a country that was nowhere in the pool until 1992 (and the arrival of the GDR coaches after the fall of the Berlin Wall).
The IOC has stated that she passed the doping tests so, until proven otherwise, she's clean.
agreed.
the sad caveat, tough, is that no GDR swimmer ever failed a drug test. China has failed over 40 the past 20 years (i think, i'd have to double check the numbers).
Oscar Pistorius for the win!
i'm glad i have no memory of this. i'm sure it was awful.
I like how NBC, on a night with no gymnastics, shows a 30-minute retrospective of Kerri Strug and the 1996 women's team. Not like there was anything else going on.
she lives in my general area. i saw her in the frozen foods section of Safeway. i did some polite stalking, just to confirm, and she shot me a weird look. i stayed away after that.
So the swimming is over. And The US won gold in both Medley Relays which was to be expected. The US Women obliterated the field as you would assume. They broke the world record and have 12 gold medals amongst them. Unreal meet for the US.
this was by far the best US team since i started seriously followed swimming as a 10 year old in 1988. a lot of that is due to the Phelps Effect -- though he's probably depressed times for the men temporarily (because he's been unbeatable for a decade), his overall effect on the sport will be enormously positive. what i've loved about him was that he always stated that his overall goal was to raise the profile of swimming. it will never be baseball, it may never even be track, but because of him NBC now shows Worlds and even Senior Nationals. that hasn't happened before.
it was extraordinary to watch them ~ extraordinary! Fantastic way for Phelps to end his career and an amazing way to herald what will undoubtedly be an incredible era for US women's swim team.
the US women are a force. so much depth, and so many teenagers on the way. it's very exciting.
I'm thrilled that the Aussies managed a medal for Liesel in her final Olympics ~ it has been a joy to watch her just revelling in the 'being there'. And for the Aussie boys ~ hopefully the fact that they fought back and medalled in that last relay will give them a new found focus . . . I'm excited for 2016 already!
i have an affection for Aussie swimming. any country that loves (and then hates) it's swimmers like that is a-ok in my book, and their history is formidable. they can come up with depth
and superstars. no doubt lots of athletic Aussie talent winds up in the pool, and i greatly respect that (there seemed to be a shocking amount of 50m swimming pools per capita in Sydney ... i was jealous) and so i hope they do recover from what has been, quite honestly, a rather disastrous Olympics.
and i look forward to 4 years of Magnussen vs. Adrian battles in the sprints. could be a fantastic rivalry.
I wonder if the debate about Shiwen's results would come up if she wasn't Chinese. Guess not - Ledecky, anyone ?
i've fully addressed this earlier. i suppose the Chinese swimmer just got lucky, you know, like Lezak in 2008.
Now we can finally move on from "greatest Olympian" hype with the end if swimming matches and bring on track and field.
agreed. it's all settled now. i'm ready for track as well.
. . . it was a fantastic race; I love the sprint because it really is a leveller in that it can be anyone's race! 
