Chinese swimmer Ning Zetao made history in Kazan just last week by becoming the first Asian man ever to win the 100m freestyle gold medal at a FINA World Championships. Ning’s time of 47.84 marked another notch along the Chinese swimmer’s recent trend of dipping beneath the 48-second barrier, and the 22-year old did so even among the likes of Australian star Cameron McEvoy and American Nathan Adrian alongside him in the race.
To what can Ning attribute his success? Among other things, the new sprint sensation credits his relatively new relationship with Australian Coach Matt Brown. Brown, who was the longtime coach of this year’s world championship’s double backstroke gold medalist Emily Seebohm’s up until just a few months prior to Kazan, moved to Surrey Park Swimming Club where he now coaches a small Chinese contingency, including Ning.
Much like the situation involving Sun Yang being coached by Denis Cotterell and Brian King on Australian soil post-drug suspension, Ning also has to tread lightly training in the country due to his own doping conviction in 2011. Australia’s anti-doping guidelines dictate that convicted foreign dopers are prohibited from training at ‘podium centers’ within the nation. However, since Brown coaches out of Surrey Park Swimming Club, a non-podium training center, Swimming Australia holds no jurisdiction.
The situation is paying dividends for Ning, as he says his self-confidence has been boosted in the new training environment. “He is a very high-level coach”, Ning says of Brown, to which Brown responds, “I rate him [Ning] highly. He’s tough as a nail and so respectful.” Besides his gold medal in Kazan, Ning had previously first broken the 100m freestyle Asian record at last year’s Asian Games with his nation’s first sub-48 time (47.70) as well as was considered the critical leg in China’s gold medal-winning 4×100 freestyle relay at the meet.
Paralleling his rising fame in the pool is Ning’s popularity outside of the pool as well. According to Chinese media, Ning “has been dubbed ‘little fresh meat’ for his good-looking face.” As a result of his historic swim, his number of followers on social media site, Weibo, shot up to 1.1 million from just 10,000 prior to the world championships.
feel bad for those who are caught if you like, but they cheated others out of their rightful place on the podium and other rewards. Hold convicted dopers up as high as you like but hold those who were cheated higher. Feel bad for anyone you like but celebrate victory for those who compete without PEDs.
And may I be the first to say, “Thank You, Lance Armstrong” for making us have doping suspicions about every special performance.
The best thing FINA has ever done was pressure USMS to forbid him from swimming in a master’s meet in Austin a few years ago.
It’s not just Lance Armstrong. Seeing how FINA handled the Efimova and Park cases — giving them shortened bans that end(ed) just in time to compete in their home WC’s and the 2016 Olympics respectively — proves that money talks, and preventing doping is at best a secondary priority for FINA. It might not be a priority at all, other than for PR purposes.
That’s why I said it’s “the best thing” FINA’s ever done. They screwed up everything else, as you correctly pointed out.
this article makes me wonder about Katie ledecky
Unfortunately in sport you can never say never, and I expect you’re just trolling but hey… KL’s times for the last 5+ years are all public record and we can see a detailed arc of her career. Unless you think she started doping when she was 13, you’ll have to point out where the incongruous improvement came. The only reason to suspect Katie Ledecky is that she’s fast.
Ning Zetao, on the other hand… you could look at him funny because we don’t know much about his career before he did his first world-class swim, or because China has a bad doping past, or because he’s training with a coach whose program was designed to to avoid a national… Read more »
On what basis? Did she ever test positive? Did she go from average swimmer to World champion? I dont think so.
clenbuterol is not common among dopers. Too easy to detect.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. It may not be the most sophisticated, but it’s cheap, effective and straightforward. It’s predictable and passes out of the body quickly and there are plenty of dopers willing to take the risk. Try Google and you’ll see no shortage of positive tests in a variety of sports, just from those who lost their bet.
…but how can anyone feel confident about that?
Sorry, cut off…
Whatever else it is, clenbuterol is a common choice for dopers – it builds muscle, cuts fat and passes quickly… There are many suspensions across all sports and that’s just the ones who got caught. Sucks to see all these lame excuses here for a guy who got caught cheating. It’d be nice to think his world title is clean bu
I almost hate to admit it but this article makes me wonder about Emily seebohm. Sorry, maybe not fair but I can’t help it. Hate to see these ridiculous excuses for a straight up doper – clenbuterol i
It,s possible to test positive for clenbuterol from eating contaminated food. Luigi, chinese athletes don’t test positive because they are paranoid about what they eat. sun yang was paranoid when he was in jail. The dude refused to eat any food given to him in jail.
by the way Katie ledecky,s times are really MAD.
A woman swimming 8:07 in the 800 free and 15:25 in the 1500 free is very CRAZY.
I wonder what non-US swimmers are thinking of ledecky. Especially the foreign female swimmers who compete against her.
They are all paranoid and this guy, who has just become world champion in swimming’s blue ribbon event, was not?
What a nice fairy tale!