Caleb (08-02-2012)
yeah, you know that men are much better than women at everything, besides cooking and cleaning, so you know that there is foul play involved. no way a 16 year old girl can beat all the men.
Caleb (08-02-2012)
I don't know if you are trying to be sarcastic or not, but yes, theoretically, men should be better than women at swimming, at least at Olympic standard! Especially where muscular strength and endurance is the key to winning. Take a look at professional women bodybuilders vs professional men's bodybuilders for example. No matter how strong that women is going to get, there will be a man, who may not even be a BB that will be stronger!
The have over 1.2 billion people between them and India there bound to have some very highly skilled athletes
I personally feel that if the girl was that amazing then she deserves the Gold medal and the praise that she was faster than the American #1 guy. If she is found to have been doping then the matter will be properly dealt with otherwise grow up and realize that American's can get beat by other truly talented athletes despite being the opposite sex, end of story.
If she's passed a drug test, then she shouldn't be being accused.
If somehow she's managed to pass a drugs test, then it's the fault of the testing company.
And as for China dominating, I think since they don't really focus on conventional sports and they have a population much larger than many countries, I'd imagine they would dominate the majority of the sports that other countries don't practice as much, e.g. shooting and stuff. I know in England it's not many kids dreams to be a world-class shooter, but they want to be world-class footballers/rugby players etc.
Just so we're clear here....
She was faster in the last 50 by something like .20 seconds. Her overall time is 23 SECONDS SLOWER.
Also, while 5 seconds is fairly drastic for swimming in general at this level, this is the 400 IM. It's an event where time drops can happen in larger intervals. Stephanie Rice, an Australian swimmer, went from 4:41.19 to 4:29.45 in the span of one year (2007 WCs --> Beijing Olympics). Rice also beat the previous record holder by 5.3 seconds. Ye Shiwen beat Rice by 1.3.
China's training is pretty intense and incredibly different from the American system. It's Tiger Mom ramped up tenfold. Kids get recruited early at the slightest hint of talent and move to gov't-sponsored athletic facilities, have rigorous diet restrictions, rarely see their families in some cases. They do specialize in certain sports the way Cuba does with boxing, while America is an all-around; it also happens they're great at events with many medal opportunities.
also wow I feel like this is a pretty long post for SPAM awk.
gr8
I'm Chinese, living in CA, couldn't be more against their culture. Based on the way they train their athletes, they should be winning a lot more medals than they are, honestly. And hey I think they didn't win a single medal in womens' gymnastics this year. Probably cuz they're all of age now
Also, badminton drama.