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More or Less

How extraordinary is Ye Shiwen? WS

More or Less

BBC

News Commentary, Science, Mathematics, News

4.63.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2012

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There was controversy this week after Ye Shiwen, a young Chinese swimmer, won the 400 metre individual medley in fine style. A US swimming coach called the performance "disturbing", implying that she may have cheated. More or Less investigates the numbers and finds there's no statistical smoking gun.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

0:04.0

The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBCWorldService.com

0:10.0

Slash Podcasts.

0:13.0

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.

0:18.0

This week the programme is dominated by a story from the Olympics.

0:22.0

Ye Shuan, a young Chinese swimmer, won the 400 metre individual medley in fine style a few days ago.

0:28.0

But then the head of the US Swimming Coaches Association, who incidentally isn't part of the US team,

0:34.0

called that performance, disturbing.

0:36.0

And the swimmer was forced to deny that she'd been taking drugs.

0:39.0

Well, Wesley Stevenson's here.

0:41.0

Let's just remind ourselves what happened in that race.

0:45.0

So at first no one was dominating.

0:47.0

So through the butterfly and the backstroke stages within the third stage,

0:52.0

the breaststroke, things started to take shape.

0:54.0

The American swimmer, Elizabeth Beisel, started to pull away.

0:57.0

And no one had really mentioned Ye Shuan at this point.

1:00.0

Yeah, the commentators had said that Beisel had slammed the door on the race.

1:03.0

He slammed the door. She was that far ahead.

1:05.0

And then two lengths to go.

1:07.0

Two lengths to go.

1:08.0

As the competitors started swimming freestyle, it looked like this happened.

1:18.0

It was extraordinary. Yes, you won.

...

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