SHORTLY before the US team concluded one of its most successful swimming world championships in history, US men’s team coach Dave Salo expressed surprise that China was not more competitive, saying the nation’s sluggish performance raised suspicions that it was keeping its best swimmers sequestered in China so they could avoid international drug testing.
With the Summer Games in Beijing three years away, Salo and other US coaches expected the Chinese, who have been public about their desire to be the dominant country at the 2008 Olympics, to be much more of a factor in the medals race.
Instead, the United States ran away with the top spot in the rankings, claiming 32 medals, its most since 1978. Australia was second with 22 and China tied two other nations for fifth place with five.
“It raises suspicions when they are not part of the world and trying to be the best they can be in the world arena,” Salo said to a small group of mostly US journalists hours before last week’s finals at Jean-Drapeau Park.
Later, he added that the nation that instituted a national anti-doping programme after more than 40 Chinese swimmers failed drug tests in the 1990s was being closely watched from within the international swimming community.
“The way you try to deal with it is from a testing standpoint,” he said. “We want to eliminate that issue from being an issue, the drug issue. But when they’re not participating to the extent you’d expect them to be here, you wonder: What are they doing? Who are they hiding?”
Salo also said: “It’s always going to raise suspicions when you’re going into Beijing (for the 2008 Olympics and the Chinese) haven’t done anything for three years and all of a sudden (they’ve) got names you’ve never heard of showing up in the finals heats. It’s discouraging. Just not knowing is frustrating for everybody.”
Zhao Ge, the coach of the Chinese team, said China’s drug problem was in its past and that most of China’s best swimmers were here. Others, he said, were preparing for another major meet.
“I don’t know why Americans say we haven’t brought the best swimmers here,” he said. “We don’t need to hide now. We’re open ... You can come to China to see everything.”
Zhao added that the Chinese swimming federation had invited Australian swimmers to take part in last year’s national championships. He said China’s problem with performance-enhancing drugs in sports was “only in the past”.
“Now we look to the future,” Zhao said. “What they think is what they think, but fact is fact.”
Chinese swimmers are subject to unannounced drug tests by national testing authorities, the world governing body of swimming (FINA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency. The Chinese anti-doping agency reported in January that only 17 of more than 4,000 Chinese athletes tested last year turned up positive for drugs. FINA’s website reports that it has performed 33 unannounced drug tests on 20 Chinese swimmers so far this year (for comparison, FINA has performed 107 tests on 79 US swimmers) and that no Chinese tested positive in 2004 (three Americans did).
Chinese officials frequently cite such statistics as evidence that the nation has moved beyond its negative doping history. A wave of positive tests and drug suspensions hit China after the 1994 world championships in Rome, when the Chinese women’s team stunned the world by winning gold medals in 12 of 16 events.
Salo’s remarks reflect a concern that other coaches have expressed — some privately — that China or other nations seeking to make a splash at a specific meet might intentionally keep their top, developing athletes out of the public eye until shortly before that event so their names would never become known to drug testers. The WADA and other international bodies that conduct testing randomly choose from athletes who are top-ranked in their sports.
When asked whether some Chinese swimmers were preparing for the 2008 Summer Games without entering competitions, Zhu Yingwen, who won the bronze in Sunday’s 50-metre freestyle, said through an interpreter that she did not know.
Dick Pound, chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said he had no reason to believe anything was amiss in China, pointing out the nation had been under significant scrutiny since the ‘90s drug outbreak and Chinese authorities have sought guidance from the WADA in creating a vigorous testing programme.
The Americans “didn’t like it when China was winning and they don’t seem to like it when the Chinese are not winning,” Pound said. “What do the Chinese have to do? If there’s a problem, identify it. If there’s not a problem, keep quiet.” Jack Bauerle, the US women’s team coach here, said he preferred not to consider sinister possibilities.
“It probably raises a little suspicion,” Bauerle said about China’s chequered history. But “I’m sure we’ve had performances in the past that people questioned because they’ve been so outstanding. I just think the host country, all of its efforts are going into ... being as good as you possibly can be.”
RECORD-BREAKER: While the heated debate over China’s performance continued, Ian Crocker had set his mind on other important things. One could say that he made Michael Phelps look human once again, but Crocker himself barely stayed within the realm of the conceivable at the 2005 swimming world championships. Crocker accomplished far more than keeping Phelps off the top of the medal podium in the 100-metre butterfly at the championships. Phelps was so far behind Crocker over the last 25 metres that the only question was how fast, exactly, was Crocker going?
Crocker was fast enough to beat Phelps by 1.25 seconds.
He was fast enough to break his own world record by 0.36 of a second.
He was fast enough to earn his second straight world title in the event, a streak of dominance notably interrupted by Phelps’s victory at last year’s Summer Games in Athens.
“He sort of ran away with it,” Phelps said. “I wasn’t even a factor.”
Crocker finished in 50.40 seconds and had time to turn his head and look for his mark before Phelps touched the wall in 51.65, short even of his personal best.
“It was definitely my goal to break the world record,” Crocker, 22, said. “I didn’t know I was going to break it by that much. When you’re going against Phelps, you always assume it’s going to take a world record to win.”
For the first time this week, Phelps, 20, could not blame himself for a result that, at least on the surface, looked to be a letdown. Indeed, the result reverberated all the way to Sunday night. Phelps, already denied the freestyle leg in the 400 medley relay final because American Jason Lezak swam faster in the 100 free final this week, was officially boxed out of the butterfly leg by Crocker’s stunning showing.
Phelps, a Baltimore native who won golds in the 200 free and 200 individual medley here but failed to medal in the 100 or 400 freestyle, chastized himself once again on Friday for his less-than-intense year of preparation leading up to this meet.
“It’s not where I want to be right now,” said Phelps, whose time came up 0.18 of a second short of his best time, which was good enough for a world record — until Crocker surpassed it — when he swam it in 2003. “This year, this world championships, has been a big wake-up call. I don’t think the past year has really been a normal year for me. I don’t like the feeling of not doing my best times, and that’s what has happened here.”
But the fact is, Phelps has nipped at Crocker’s heels in the 100 fly ever since the 2003 world championships in Barcelona, when Crocker broke Phelps’s record in a stunning upset victory. Crocker lowered his record again at last year’s Olympic trials in Long Beach in July, making it clear he — not Phelps — was the man to beat in the event.
Phelps, who taped a photo of Crocker on his bedroom wall for inspiration after the Barcelona championships, defeated Crocker when most of the world was paying attention last August. That victory gave Phelps his fifth Olympic gold medal.
Though Phelps vowed to go back to his training home at the University of Michigan and tighten his workout regimen, Crocker has set the bar high.—Dawn/LAT-WP Service (c)Los Angeles Times
SHORTLY before the US team concluded one of its most successful swimming world championships in history, US men’s team coach Dave Salo expressed surprise that China was not more competitive, saying the nation’s sluggish performance raised suspicions that it was keeping its best swimmers sequestered in China so they could avoid international drug testing.
RECORD-BREAKER: While the heated debate over China’s performance continued, Ian Crocker had set his mind on other important things. One could say that he made Michael Phelps look human once again, but Crocker himself barely stayed within the realm of the conceivable at the 2005 swimming world championships. Crocker accomplished far more than keeping Phelps off the top of the medal podium in the 100-metre butterfly at the championships. Phelps was so far behind Crocker over the last 25 metres that the only question was how fast, exactly, was Crocker going?
