Wow, this is the dumbest, most ignorant article I've read in a long time. All Olympic medalists get tested immediately after the competition so if Ye's doping, then she'll be found out. But until that happens, and so far the IOC has gone on record as to saying they have zero suspicions of her, then all this chatter is just character assassination and defamation. These accusations simply have no grounding but rather is based on pure conjecture.

But one of the more laughable things about this "article" is how it is so blatantly biased against Ye and the Chinese (and quite transparently racist overall).

While Ye's amazing accomplishments are termed "unbelievable" in the literal sense and "suspicious", Ruta Meilutyte is given a completely free pass despite being only 15 years old, swimming over 2 seconds faster in the Final than she ever has before the Olympics, and only being ranked 14th in the world in this event. Not only that, but this is her first major international competition.

Ye, on the otherhand, is the world champion of the 200m individual medley having won the event at the 2011 World Aquatics Championships, and placed 2nd in the 400m individual medley TWO YEARS AGO at the 2010 World Championships (25 m). She is definitely not an "unknown" from out of "nowhere". What's more, she improved her personal best by only 2 seconds in the heats of these Olympics from her 2010 time, and then improved it again by 3 seconds in the finals of the event. So in two years, from when she was 14 to now when she is 16, she improved her time by 5 seconds. Stephanie Rice, on the other hand, swimming in the same event, improved her time by SIX seconds RIGHT BEFORE the Beijing Olympics. Of course no one has accused Rice of doping despite this.

And now Missy Franklin, who was able to WIN a finals events only 13 minutes after swimming an exhausting 200 meter freestyle semi-final, when the shortest rest period Michael Phelps got in Beijing was THIRTY minutes, is celebrated rather than have suspicions aroused, even though this feat is way more unusual and unheard of then Ye simply winning a race and breaking a world record.

Now do I really think we ought to be suspicious of Meilutyte and Franklin? Of course not!

Unless they have their tests come back as positive, there is absolutely NO reason why anyone should suspect their great accomplishments instead of hailing them. And that goes for Ye as well.

It's utterly ridiculous to celebrate the former two while defaming the latter simply because Franklin is from the US and Meilutyte is from Lithuania.

This is another ridiculous hypocrisy of this "writer" as Lithuania has hardly been known as a swimming powerhouse and yet also has a reputation for doping, the most recent case being that of Aurimas Didzbalis who failed a doping test just two weeks ago and stripped of his European silver medal and suspended for these Olympics.

The US team, let's not forget, has had it's share of doping cases as well like that of Jessica Hardy. She is part of the bronze winning USA women's 4x100m freestyle team in these London Olympics, but was kicked off the US team for the Beijing Olympics for testing positive for a banned performance enhancer during the US Olympic trails and subsequently was banned from competition for a year.

But of course, this "journalist" would like to ignore all that when stating "Now, if Ye was Canadian, or American, or British, or German, we might be a little less suspicious."

Why would that be? Canadians don't dope? Right, of course, the BIGGEST Olympic doping scandal EVER concerned a Canadian by the name of Ben Johnson. But let's just brush that under the rug because it doesn't fit our narrative of "if Ye was Canadian, or American, or British, or German, we might be a little less suspicious."

The irony of Johnson's gold medal for the 100 meter dash in 1988 Olympics being awarded to second place finisher Carl Lewis is that it was reveal years later that Lewis had failed THREE doping tests during the US Olympic trials of that year, which should have gotten him kicked off the US team. And yet the United States Olympic Committee covered us these failed drug tests so that Lewis could compete. It was also revealed that the USOC covered up 114 positive tests between 1988 and 2000. All this has comes out and Lewis now even openly admits he used PEDs during his career.

And let's not forget Marion Jones, who because of biased attitudes like of this "writer", escaped unnoticed for years despite her husband, a shot putter also on the US team, being banned for doping during the 2000 Olympics for testing positive FOUR times for steroids, and the fact that she actually tested positive during a random drug test in high school and was banned for 4 years until OJ Simpson's attorney, Johnnie Cochran, got the ban revoked.

And of course, aside from the Olympics, American sports are NOTORIOUS for doping. Take the case of American baseball. From Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez and dozens more players that have admitted to doping to Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens, who are largely suspected and some being charged by the government of doping, these are the greatest players in the past two decades and they have ALL doped.

The British don't dope??? Just on THIS Olympics' Great Britain team are THREE dopers who were previously given bans, namely David Millar the cyclist who tested positive for EPO and missed out the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, sprinter Dwain Chambers, and shot putter Carl Myerscough.

And let's not forget British wrestler and Commonwealth Games champion Myroslav Dykun just being banned for doping earlier this year.

The Germans don't dope? Are you serious? The East Germans for decades ran one of the most wide-spread and sophisticated state-sponsored doping programs EVER, far exceeding China in the 90s and rivaling the USSR's program if not surpassing it.

If we are taking about recent times, Germany's own anti-doping agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency are currently investigating the German doctor "Dr. Andreas Franke, who extracted blood from athletes, treated it with ultraviolet light and injected it back into the same athlete."

28 athletes are named in the case including "Olympic speedskating champion Claudia Pechstein, former 800-meter Olympic champion Nils Schumann, [and] rising German cycling star Marcel Kittel".

So tell me again, why is it that "if Ye was Canadian, or American, or British, or German, we might be a little less suspicious"? Is this based on factual reality or rather, just another obvious example of your transparent and blatant bias, discrimination and racism?

Not only are the arguments presented in this "article" full of holes and mostly laughable, the "journalism" is also extremely suspect and blatanly dishonest.

For example, he mentions, "China won a record 51 golds in their home Games, and continue to win medals here, in all sorts of disciplines. The last similar factory was East Germany, and their hulking man-women".

East Germany, of course, was famous for state-sponsored doping and thus this "journalist" is basically insinuating through his weasel phrases that China was doing the same during 2008 and as a result, won their "record 51 golds". There accusations, of course, come without any examples, proof or references.

The reality is that of all the athletes that tested positive during the 2008 Beijing Olympics games (not including the previously mentioned athletes that tested positive BEFORE the Olympics and therefore didn't attend), NONE of them were from China.

There were, however, athletes from the US and Germany, two of the countries this "writer" claims we shouldn't be suspicious of, as well as athletes from Ireland, Norway, Spain, Greece, Italy, North Korea, Vietnam, Croatia, Ukraine, Poland, Bahrain and Brazil.

Another dishonest tactic of this "writer" is that he bases much of the "impossibility" of Ye's achievement in that her "final 50-metre freestyle split that was faster than the gold medal-winning equivalent by Ryan Lochte in the men’s race". Naturally, many readers, as demonstrated in the comments below, have interpreted that to mean the Ye actually BEAT Lochte's time, which is hilariously off-base and untrue.

The fact is and what this "journalist" fails to mention is that Lochte swam the 400m individual medley over TWENTY seconds faster than Ye in their respective finals, and that he also BEAT her in the 100m freestyle split when considering BOTH laps.

It is well-known that Lochte often goes all out in the beginning of races, and fades near the end. That was well demonstrated in the 4x100 relay finals in which Lochte himself said he was "too excited" and over-swam the first 50m and therefore not leaving enough gas for the final lap, and as we all know, ended up losing the race to Yannick Agnel and the French team.

It is also well-known the Ye employs almost the opposite strategy. Like many other swimmers, she conserves her energy for much of the race and then explodes at the end. Like even John Leonard admitted, her splits from the other 300 meters were "quite ordinary". She did not expend all her energy at the beginning and was letting her competitors beat her until the final 100 meters which is when she made her move.

Given the different strategies employed by Lochte and Ye, it's much less surprising that Ye was able to swim tenths of a second faster on the final 50 meters, while keeping in mind Lochte still had a faster 100 meter split on the freestyle and was over 20 seconds faster overall in the entire 400 meters.

The real sad thing about this "article" is that this "journalist" basically praises Franklin for employing the same strategy when she had to swim her 200m freestyle semi-final right before her 100m backstroke final, saying "she swam her freestyle with as much arm work as possible, to save herself for the leg-deadening backstroke. It was quite a feat."

Rather than praising Ye for "quite a feat", instead he accuses Ye of being like a superhero character from "The Incredibles", of having "superhuman speed" and "told by his parents to ease up at the track meet, and go just slow enough to finish a close second", "holding back to whatever part of the race that suits her, and then casually making every other world-class swimmer in the field look like she’s drowning".

So rather than praise Ye's successful strategy of conserving her energy initially so she could have more in the tank at the end, similar to the strategy employed by Franklin, this "writer" is insinuating that Ye could go full blast like she did on the final 100m freestyle during the ENTIRE race, and is only "holding back" to not make her "superhuman speed" (i.e. her "doping") appear so obvious.

Not only is this assumption completely ludicrous and mind-blowingly insipid, it's also astonishing that this type of tripe could be published in so-called "respectable" publication.

If the Olympics had an event for "Worst Olympics Coverage and Analysis", this "writer" would win by such a margin that he would not be able to escape accusations of doping with some sort of newly invented super "stupid pill". And like Ye, he would be falsely accused.

He really is this stupid.

Holy Doodle you should be writing for the NP. How do you know all this stuff? Great post...good job.

Chinese Communist Party shill. This helps to explain the incessant and unnecessary tuo-quoque accusations of cheating.

Unemployed self appointed shill doing volunteer work.

Yes, you're right. This is our Western way to discredit others by libel and slander just in order to make our points true.

excellent response - much more informative and insightful than the original article by far

This is the most articulate, well written and interesting response i have ever read. You completely destroy the writer without ever mentionning is name (i guest it was an editorial choice not to promote is name). It is so good to see a Globe and Mail writer burst into air. . Thank you Mr Toothnail !!!

A response that goes out of it's way to establish that athletes will go out of their way to cheat. The missing piece is that systematic cheating at the Olympics has been supported by Communist block states as a means to assert moral superiority over the rest of the world.

Until the Chinese get rid of their cheating taint......I'm not buying what they're selling.

america cheat more than all other country combine

40 + swimmers from 1990 on have been CAUGHT doping.

How many Americans? Sorry, loser, you are a fine example of your handle.

It is the biased media give this impression. Most reports about other countries including Germany is negative here in US. I don't like it, people can easily get the faked feeling that US is much better than other countries. However, the reality is not. It makes me think of China 200yrs ago, arrogant, narrow-minded and stupid with the No.1 GDP of the world.

Plus, Americans never cheat at all? Kidding me. They grab the majority of the world's natural resources by economical methods which can be considered as both "cheating" and "robbing" and refused to go more green. Actually, I'm surprised at how people are selfish here, they only care about themselves. Europe is much better in this way.

Normally I skip long comments like these, but this was an incredible response! I've read a couple articles on this, and always felt that things were being taken out of context and warped to fit some kind of xenophobic narrative, but you produced the evidence to back it up. Thanks for your well thought out response!

Cheating began with the propaganda driven, state sponsored East german sports machine...Individual western athletes knew what was happenening and followed suit.

Cheating in sport began far before the East Germans.

Holy crap I think u just own this writer

Way to go Buckus The National Post should pay you for adding a 'fair and balanced' response to a rather stupid biased and some might say racist tinged article.

Bah to racism. Cheaters cheat and more often than not you'll find them from Communist regimes.

No doubt the rest of the world cheats, but more often than not, there isn't a whole system supporting dopers with cash, doctors and the latest-can't-be-found-in-your-urine medicines.

Don't know that the drugs used by dopers mostly originated or were patterned in the U.S. first? We in the U.S. have a world-wide system selling all kinds of drugs, for good or bad purposes if you still remember that we are the hegemon of the capitalist world and we will sell even our souls for profit.

Oh do hush. When the East Germans were feeding their swimmers a cocktail of drugs to make them more like males, they were using the same stuff we were treating sick people with.

Example -- one the drugs we use for cancer patients (EPO to increase red blood cell counts in cancer patients has a great spin off for cyclists and distance athletes) was warped by the Commies for their athletes.

Once the state got involved, you had mass scale tinkering with steroids, human growth hormones etc.

Making this an argument about capitalistic drug companies is off base.

Nice response. Unlike the author and many other in the USA media, you actually brought fact to the table. USA is notoriously for cheating. Wonder how USA would respond when Chinese media tomorrow goes off screaming Ms. Franklin is doping along with half of American swimming team. It is laughable how the media here goes off attacking a 16 years old who just had the most incredible day in her life. Until she is tested positive, where is the evidence? Remember last Olympics USA was accusing underage Chinese girls in gymnastics? What happened to that? Meanwhile, American TV is going gaga over Ms. Franklin. She is 17. How come no one is accusing her of anything? No one ever questioned Michael Phelps either. USA is cheating capital for sports. People who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones.

They wouldn't care what the Chinese write in their newspapers.

Thanks for the wonderful response. I have seen this kind of racist profiling and prejudgment applied to not just the Chinese, but also the Muslims, and so on. This practice of racism has been perpetuated by the media in the West (where I am now living). The whole world has been made much worse by these bigots and racists.

ah yes... the "racist" card played again. Yawn.

I am sure the Lake view from your trailer is quite lovely.

Great response. Much better than the article itself. It must suck for writers when they get owned by their readers.

Buckus should be hired for journalism in place of this hack of a "writer".

"is based on pure conjecture.".

I disagree. The story of the Olympics is one of countries finding performance enhancing methods that won't trip some test. I do agree that it is unfair to be pointing fingers at any athlete without something more than a fantastic race result. .

Or pointing at specific sports -- weighlifting, long distance cycling/running and women's swimming are areas where dopers have been found.

Sprinters and throwers are another category of dopers.

Great response! What a shame for such a racist & biased article. Surely, this so-called journalist did not do his research before writing this article. I will hire you & fire this stupid, ignorant journalist instead!

Informative post. And the gold medal for long distance responses goes to...

I absolutely agree with you.

@twitter-169383847 came here wanted to joke about Ye having to shave all the way down to her testicals. However, you make a very persuasive case for sour grapes on the part of the US media rather than doping.

Alternatively, and consistent with your arguments, Ye has much company when it comes to doping.

Women don't have testicles. Amerika is supposed to win. That's the way the script was written! Typical bunch of whiners. Suck it up Yankees

Correction. Some women do have testicles. South Africa's Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite who has internal testicles. She has consistently outrun others at women's races and was found to have triple the amount of testosterone than other female racers putting her at an advantage.

Very well said - except for the closing personal attack on the author.
The article is abysmal - my word, yes. But its tone likely came straight from the top.
Vis-à-vis foreign relations, it's common knowledge that the intended purpose of rags like this is to generate heat, not shed light.

This is all very interesting...but at the end of the day, she either doped or she didn't. We live in a sports world of cheating. What she achieved as being the result of 'hard work' and some 'wait-until-the-end' strategy is simply not as plausible as one, glaring alternative explanation.

Yes the most plausible is what I have my money on. A very long comment above that overlooks the obvious. The time swam by Ye for the final 100m leg is only 10% longer than than that time swam by winners of womens 100m freestyles. In both men and womens swimming times are for the end of a 400 m swim are between 18-23% longer.

If she can swim the last 100m of a 400m swim so fast she should be able to smash the 100m record also and should be representing her country in the 100m, 200m, 400m and given she had so much petrol in the tank she could do the 800 or 1500 as well.

The fastest times that are physically possible are when a swimmer travels at a consistent pace throughout the race, Ye if she swam it well could have taken maybe 3-5 seconds off the world record which the original author quiet rightly states was set with enhanced swim.

She is not Michael Phelps, a 'superman' who attended so many matches and grabbed the golds. I wondered why the 'fair' media didn't cast any doubt on him.

I can recall clearly exactly the same things said about the bulky East German swimmers who easily beat then world record holder Canadian little Nancy Garapick. Kowledgeable coaches cried foul and commie apologists like this guy defended these cheaters. These cheats still hold the gold medal after their former coach admitted to systemic doping in the East German sports machine.

I chatted with a Cdn female swimmer a bunch of years ago and she and everyone else knew those "little girls" with the acne, male musculature and beards from East Germany weren't just taking vitamins.

My faith in the IOC and their press releases is not high.

One just needs to go look at the pictures out of Perth Australia of the women Chinese swimmers? If there swimming program is so good and their skill is so good where are the men swimmers, are we to believe they can only coach women to be record breakers?

Chinese man has broke the olympic record in 400m free style and took silver in 200m free style, he's also very strong in 1500m free style. So I have to ask, are you a troll or just ignorant?

And previous to this Olympics when the women were breaking world record after world record...where were the men?

So out of over 1 billion people they get one male to go fast? Really?

Seems the East German men were another power house -- not.

you are really a joke. did you ever watch the London Olympic at all? Or did you ever watch any swimming games at all?

As the Chisel economy advances the new generations are getting bigger and stronger improving the pool of talent to choose from.
It is USA track and field that is notorious for doping

Holy long reply!

Don't forget that most of the free world lined up against drug users. Ben Johnson did because, as Charlie Francis noted, you can line up with the rest of the world or start 1 m behind.

I take in on my gut instinct that the athletes for the most part are doping to some level.

Now, I'd love to see Ye's diet and training regimes. I'm guessing that there's more than "royal jelly: in her diet.

Sorry, I trust non-Communist states slightly more than Communist states.

Nice rant. But the fact that she's Asian means she has been doping. It's as simple as that.

Nice to see the definition of racism on display here.

It sounds clear that you might be high on some prohibited stuff, because you don't make any sense unless you are implying that the American athletes are all doping because they are Americans who have a longer and more notorious and extensive history of doping than China or most other nations.