China: Our swimmers are clean
2008-08-15 11:09
Beijing - A Chinese swimming coach on Friday dismissed suspicions of doping after unknowns Liu Zige and Jiao Liuyang produced stunning performances to take gold and silver in the women's 200m butterfly.
Liu on Thursday smashed the world record by 1.22 seconds to lead teammate Jiao in a one-two finish ahead of Jessicah Schipper of Australia, giving China their first swimming gold of the Beijing Games.
It was only China's third gold since its prime at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when it won four.
Since then the squad has had to fight the stigma of doping scandals and managed just two titles in the following three Games - one in 1996 and one in 2004.
In the world of international swimming competition, few had heard of Liu and Jiao, but coach Pan Jiazhang insisted there was nothing untoward about their performances.
"Look at how many times our swimmers have been tested, I assure you that this is a clean team," Pan was quoted as saying in the state-run China Daily.
"Why do they accuse us every time we are doing well? Why don't they look at those times when we are not good?"
The trainer of Polish swimmer Otylia Jedrzejczak, Pawel Slominski, branded the results as "not rational", in remarks made to Polish media who took the coach's comments as implying doping might have been involved.