If it had been an American athlete, would this have appeared in the New York Times? I'm not so sure.
The problem with associating any dominant performance with doping is that this sort of thing is never equally or equitably applied. What Michael Phelps has been doing, we're constantly told, defies belief. So if it's so unbelievable, why are we all so comfortable believing it? I'm not accusing Michael Phelps of doping, but I find the evidence that this swimmer is no more compelling than the evidence that Phelps is. When certain athletes excel in unexpected or extreme ways, we almost always have an edge of suspicion. But this just hasn't happened with Phelps, for reasons I can't quite understand.
Look at FloJo. She's been the subject of rife speculation and assumptions about cheating, even after her death. But the primary evidence, as far as I know, has always been the simple fact that she was so dominant. And again, that's problematic, because we don't apply that logic to everyone. Either everyone should operate under the veil of suspicion or no one should. If you've got other evidence, like the many allegations against Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire-- which include evidence of wrongdoing, like physical evidence of purchasing illegal substances or, in Bonds's case, admission in sworn testimony of using performance enhancing drugs-- it's fair to put that stuff on the table, though it doesn't really prove anything. But to inconsistently make that assumption based only on performance, or how expected that performance was, isn't remotely fair. And I certainly think the nationality of the swimmer has something to do with it.
In related news, Rowdy Gaines, Olympic swimming color commentator, baldly asserted during the 200 IM final that Phelps would have won had he swum the race. I nearly leaped out of my chair. That's so incredibly disrespectful to Ryan Locte and Aaron Piersol, I can't even believe it. You can't possibly know that, and to just assert it is beyond irresponsible and unfair. Phelps Phatigue grows and grows-- not because of Michael Phelps, but because of NBC and the commentators at swimming. Ugh.
Update: Anonymous makes good points in the comments. I should say that this isn't intended as a direct response to the NYT piece but to the general haze of doubt surrounding this performance.
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2 comments:
While I am sympathetic to your overall point, I don't think it's a dominant performance alone that is driving the speculation, but the fact that Liu had never participated in a single international competition (and was most recently ranked 22nd). Phelps by contrast has been a known commodity on the swimming circuit since 2000; while the extent of his dominance is extreme, I don't think his performance in any single event was necessarily unexpected by his competitors. Though nationalistic double standards and sour grapes from competitors may be fueling much of the speculation, I actually thought the Times article used such questions to offer a fair overview of the Chinese swimming program.
The evidence against Flo-Jo is more compelling (although it also should make you a little sympathetic toward her). She was a known commodity on the international circuit. As a skinny girl, she won silver medals in the 200 in the 1984 Olympics, losing to the massively muscular Valerie Brisco-Hooks, and the 1987 World Championships, losing to an East German later caught doping.
In late 1987 she called up Ben Johnson for advice, then reappeared several months later suddenly looking like Wonder Woman. She retired as soon as the stronger drug testing imposed after Ben Johnson got caught came on line.
The most straightforward explanation is that she was the fastest 200m clean woman runner in the world, but grew tired of losing to cheaters while having to work in a salon to make ends meet, so she started cheating herself.
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