The Five Golden Flowers are gone, even before they wilted. The five women swimmers who had accounted for all of China’s eight Olympic and world titles-four of each-have been replaced on the country’s elite team by a new bouquet.
To the rest of the world, this arrangement smells of the same disquieting odor that came from the gilded bunch. It is one of suspicion that the rapid flowering of Chinese women’s swimming has been fertilized by performance-enhancing drugs.
When the quadrennial World Swimming Championships begin Monday at the Foro Italico, the Chinese water lilies are expected to overrun the competition. The only question is whether they will blow every other life form out of the pool.
That may become evident after Monday’s two women’s events, the 100-meter freestyle and 400 individual medley. In the freestyle race, Chinese swimmers stand 1-2-3 in the 1994 world rankings. In the individual medley, Dai Guohong was the 1993 world leader.
The 12-member Chinese women’s team at this meet has the world leaders in seven of the 13 individual events. The United States has just two world leaders, Janet Evans in the 400 free and Allison Wagner in the 400 IM.
Yet none of the five women who won China’s eight individual medals-four gold and four silver-at the 1992 Olympics is on the team here. That there has been no dropoff in results considering such a turnover is stunning; by comparison, five of the eight U.S. women who won individual Olympic medals two years ago are swimming this week.
None of the 1994 top rankings belongs to Dai, who won three events-both breaststrokes and the 400 IM-at the Short Course World Championships last December in Spain. Yet it is her past statistical achievements that best illustrate the troubling growth of China into a swimming superpower that revives memories of East Germany.
Dai, 17, finished 1992 ranked among the world’s top 150 in just one event, the 100 breaststroke, in which she was 34th. She finished 1993 as the top-ranked swimmer in three events.
In six years, China has gone from winning its first world or Olympic medal to becoming the dominant force in women’s swimming. That rise clearly was accelerated by the demise of East Germany, which ceased to exist as a nation in 1990, ending a 17-year reign over the sport.
Asked to explain such phenomenal improvement, Chinese national coach Chen Yunpeng cites a demanding weight training program and four daily doses of an herbal medicine containing ginseng root and ground deer horn.
Other national coaches find such answers disingenuous. In a Tribune special report published last November, Richard Quick of the U.S., David Haller of Great Britain, Hans Chrunak of Sweden and Bill Sweetenham of Hong Kong pointed out strong circumstantial evidence of drug use. To that point, no top Chinese swimmer had tested positive for banned drugs.
Since then, there has also been hard evidence, in the form of two significant steroid positives. One was Zhong Weiyue, who set world short-course records in the 50 and 100 butterfly at a 1994 World Cup meet. The other was Ren Xin, who won three gold medals at the recent Goodwill Games. Both were stripped of their records and victories.
Both were suspended two years, although their loss hardly is felt. Neither was among China’s top four performers in any event a year ago.
Chinese sports authorities have finally admitted to use of performance-enhancing drugs by their athletes. They say anti-drug efforts have been stepped up. They also try to disclaim the problem as one affecting only the provincial level.
Sweetenham debunked the last defense by noting the best time and place to administer undetectable substances like human growth hormone would be “in the provinces at the age of maturation.”
The most telling remark in the Tribune special report came from Allen Richardson of Honolulu, chairman of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) medical commission.
“We have another East Germany on our hands,” said Richardson, who was rebuked by other FINA officials for that statement.
Former East German swim coaches have admitted to systematic doping of their athletes. At least one, Klaus Rudolf, played a significant role in developing China’s swimming program.
“The most frustrating thing is I swam when the East Germans were around, too,” said Evans, 23, the quadruple Olympic gold medalist. “When the Iron Curtain fell, we all breathed a sigh of relief, because we felt whatever they were doing was going to end.
“It’s starting again with exactly the same symptoms. I hate to see it because I saw how it demoralized a lot of swimmers. Having the East Germans all over again doesn’t make me happy.”
So far, the Chinese have not been a threat to Evans. Yet they have dramatically closed the gap on her in the 400 freestyle, in which China has three of this year’s top five performers.
China’s prime target may be Franziska van Almsick of Germany, the last great swimmer from the East German program. Van Almsick, 16, won six gold medals at the 1993 European Championships and was last season’s top-ranked swimmer in the 100 and 200 freestyles.
As three top Chinese swimmers-Dai, sprinter Le Jingyi and backstroker He Cihong-said, as if in chorus, to the French sports newspaper L’Equipe: “(Our goal in Rome) is two gold medals and the world records to go along with them.”
Those would look nice in any garden.
