London 2012

[Alan1]

I see a 16 year old swimmer broke the world record and knocked FIVE seconds off her personal best time to win gold and people are saying it was unbelievable and "suspicious" (an American coach in fact said it).

That is why I cannot be bothered with the Olympics these days, you are always left wondering if they have won honestly.

They can be tested for performance enhancing drugs but at the same time there are countries who develop new drugs that can stay one step ahead of the tests, a bit like anti virus software can only detect a virus if it knows what it is

[Merlin M]

sometimes stuff like that shows you how petty the world can be... I always dislike how the media in this country drops sports people who don't do as well as they think they should have...

[Gordon]

When are the Olimpics on anyway

[Kirkie]

Australian swimming legend and BBC analyst Ian Thorpe adds his view to the Ye Shiwen controversy: "How we should talk about it is that we should take away the nationality. If we had an athlete from Team GB who dropped three seconds we would say 'Wow'. I took five seconds off my time in the 400m freestyle from 15-16. We have to remember young swimmers can take off chunks of time others can't. We should wait. This is what I don't like in sport, when people are successful people say it is because of drugs."

[Merlin M]

Some wise words there...

[Alan1]

I saw thorpe on TV saying that but then he would always defend the athletes. I for one would still be wondering even if it was a British swimmer, after all Brits have been at it in the past. Daley Thomson once said drugs should be allowed then the best person would win using everything available to them. It would probably lead to deaths.

The reason for suspicions are..

Dihydrotestosterone, anabolic steroids, erythropoietin and human growth hormones. All banned substances. All used by various members of the Chinese national swim team in the last 15 years.

China did not register among the world's swimming powers until the 1990s, and when they did, they did with a bang.

The country won four swimming gold medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and then took 12 of 16 women's titles at the 1994 world championships.

The team's sudden success fuelled suspicion of drug use, and by the next big competition, those hunches proved true.

Eleven athletes tested positive for dihydrotestosterone at the 1994 Asian Games. The big bust decimated the swim squad for the 1996 Olympics (they won just one gold), but soon enough the Chinese were back on top again. Not for long, however.

Four positive tests before the 1998 world championships along with the vials of the human growth hormone found in breastroker Yuan Yuan's luggage before the worlds signalled that doping was still thriving in China's pools.

Though the country maintained there was no systemic doping on its swim teams, the statistics say otherwise.

Over 40 Chinese swimmers since 1990 have failed drug tests. That's triple the amount of any other swimming country during the same period of time.

[Alan1]

The badminton was interesting

[yuna1971]

Hmm..I am sorry to say I am a little suspicious...5 seconds is massive. And faster than a man was it they said?? Interesting what Al put above too. On the flipside - happy if I am wrong and will say, what a brilliant achievement.
I guess I still remember what reaction there was when Ben Johnson won 100m Olympic Gold, and Marion Jones... I thought "wow! Amazing!" ...but ultimately we know what happened with those 2.
Really hope its all above board..but sometimes if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
Um...yeah, guess I am on the fence and we will see.
Lol...talk about not wanting to stick my neck out xx

[Torterra]

Originally Posted by caledonia

The badminton was interesting

We went to Wembley arena watch badminton yeasterday, it was great show! We had afternoon session tickets, good seats as well. Watched 2 GB athletes and they both lost, but just. Great matches though.
I also went to first day shooting, managed to get into the finals hall both morning and afternoon. Women air rifle standing and men air pistol. Shooting tickets did not have seats, and everyone had to queue for 2 hours to get into the finals hall, the queue was huge. So we did not watch preliminary, but were queuing, both times got good seats. Why wouldnt they sell seats for finals separately, so many people paid to get in and could not see medals, only so much spectators can seat in the finals hall.

[Kirkie]

Originally Posted by caledonia

The badminton was interesting

They've all been disqualified this morning.