Swimming legend Mark Spitz on a question regarding Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen and her record breaking performance in the Women’s 400 metre individual medley at the 2012 Olympic Games:
“Certainly the performance stands on its own merits. World record swims and she drops her time by seconds from one year to the next. Obviously that might lead to suspicion. She was tested by the IOC (international Olympic Commission) and was found to be drug free – but with that being said we have to look at ‘is the IOC testing for every drug that is performance enhancing drug out there? And the answer is, of course they are not and we know as a fact that a lot of the performance enhancing drugs that they test for on that list are old school. That they haven’t been taken by the elite athletes for years. So, by design you have to say to yourself ‘is it designed to let those fall through the cracks and not be found?’ That is the speculation that needs to be examined and not her in particular – but that actual system within itself.”
