Yu Zidi- what do we think is going on?

[Anonymous]

Starting a separate thread because someone mentioned her and I looked up the times and story and I'm puzzled. Is there any universe where she is doing this without doping? If she is doing honestly, then it sucks for her, because she's doing it in the shadow of a program that had basically every swimmer caught cheating in the last olympic quad even if they weren't punished. If she isn't doing it honestly, it's horrible for her to be being used like this.

I've been around a lot of swimming prodigies like this, but I'm baffled that she would reach her peak at 12. I've seen girls peak as age groupers reaching crazy time standards as 9-10s or even as first year 11-12s and then blow up during puberty, or gradually improve and become sensations at 14-15. But 12-about-to-turn-13 is never a time when I've seen everything come together at any level.

I think she is on some version of heart medication like the other Chinese swimmers or like the Russian figure skater. Your theories?

[Anonymous]

Chinese Communist government is never honest about anything.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if age + cardiovascular meds is the new workaround for doping. It doesn’t create obvious physical signs like steroids and testosterone of yore. And if you can dope a child young enough, they could use it to adapt and improve rapidly and before they are in the WADA testing pipeline, theoretically. I don’t know enough to know if the drugs would have to be taken continuously or if taking them up to say age 10-11 could have a strong enough impact on the development of the cardiovascular system that you could stop and still benefit from the effects at 12-13.

[Anonymous]

Let’s put it out in the open. If this was a 12 year old Japanese or Canadian swimmer, there would be less speculation about doping. Swimming has certainly seen many female teen phenoms that peak early and then fade. Katie Hoff, Amanda beard, among others. Chinese swimmers were getting tested far more often than non Chinese swimmers running up to Paris, not sure if that is still the case.

Even if she was doping to increase her cardiovascular capacity, her opening fly leg was a 27.43, which isn’t possible without technique and lots of it. The 11-12 girls’ 50 fly LCM is 27.91, and the 13-14 girls’ nag is a 26.18. I don’t think doping could enable a 12 year old to swim like this, especially given that it’s IM and not just distance free. Either she is freakishly talented, or she is freakishly talented and on ped’s, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that her talent is prodigious. The enhanced games are trying desperately to get a swimmer to break a world record on ped’s by offering $1 million, and have only managed one swim from a guy wearing a banned polyurethane suit.

[Anonymous]

A bit tangential but this reminds me of one of the most awesome dad blog posts of the 2000s. A NYC dad dressed his four-year-old daughter as "underage Chinese Olympic gymnast" for Halloween.

https://metrodad.typepad.com/index/2008/10/by-popular-dema.html

I would say there's no use worrying about what's going on with this girl unless she will be taking the gold away from your kid.

[Anonymous]

People had said for years that girls were worst test takers than boys. My sister got a 1600 SAT. All it takes is one. Maybe your xenophobia needs to be addressed along with your inability to understand logic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Starting a separate thread because someone mentioned her and I looked up the times and story and I'm puzzled. Is there any universe where she is doing this without doping? If she is doing honestly, then it sucks for her, because she's doing it in the shadow of a program that had basically every swimmer caught cheating in the last olympic quad even if they weren't punished. If she isn't doing it honestly, it's horrible for her to be being used like this.

I've been around a lot of swimming prodigies like this, but I'm baffled that she would reach her peak at 12. I've seen girls peak as age groupers reaching crazy time standards as 9-10s or even as first year 11-12s and then blow up during puberty, or gradually improve and become sensations at 14-15. But 12-about-to-turn-13 is never a time when I've seen everything come together at any level.

I think she is on some version of heart medication like the other Chinese swimmers or like the Russian figure skater. Your theories?

What theory? She could be just that good. What one should ask is how many “exemptions” are team USA members getting to use ban substances themselves- Aderall, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People had said for years that girls were worst test takers than boys. My sister got a 1600 SAT. All it takes is one. Maybe your xenophobia needs to be addressed along with your inability to understand logic

Yet you are providing a false correlation. There are no limitations on intelligence by age so its not a surprise that a female can and has scored a 1600. You can have a certain intelligence AND improve scores with studying at any age. The brain works that way. The body does not. There are physical limits due to size, age, muscle, joints, etc. What this person has done is practically impossible physically speaking without some sort of artificial boost.

[Anonymous]

If an American did this would you be asking the same questions?

[Anonymous]

I feel bad for her. So much pressure.

If it’s simply talent and hard work, no one will believe it.

If it’s doping, she is *being doped* by adults.

It’s abusive either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If an American did this would you be asking the same questions?

Absolutely. What she is doing at (allegedly) age 12 is highly questionable regardless of her country of origin. I also thought don’t think it’s inappropriate to take into account that she is from China given that country’s history when it comes to doping.

[Anonymous]

Just curious, is she super tall or big?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If an American did this would you be asking the same questions?

Of course. Are you a Communist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If an American did this would you be asking the same questions?

Yes, absolutely it would be asked. Look at psych sheets for junior nationals. There is maybe one 12 year old and a 4-5 13 year olds in a field of hundreds of swimmers, and they’re all in distance events. It is an extremely atypical age to reach this kind of peak in swimming. The on other 12 year old at the world level recently who I can think of was a Japanese breaststroker. Breaststroke makes sense because it’s less reliant on wingspan and one stroke where over the past 2 decades we’ve seen 14/15 year old girls.

[Anonymous]

Everyone in sports dopes. It's just a matter of mixing new cocktails that the testers haven't developed tests for.
But for Chinese phenoms, let's consider population proportion. In a nation with that many 12 year old girls, there is a greater likelihood that more of them will have swimming talent than a country with a smaller population of 12 year old girls. Add in the fact that the government identifies and develops sports talent early which really helps.
For instance, the basketball star Yao Ming didn't come out of nowhere. His parents were basketball players plucked by the government. Then their kid was developed when he showed interest and talent.