At the past Olympics, 16 year old Ye Shiwen shocked the world by setting a new World Record in the 400 IM and beating the American favorite in the race by several seconds. Now, Ye is not exactly new to the world's stage as she was the 2011 World Champion in the 200 IM and should have been favored to be very competitive in both IM races, but for some reason her "win" was suspect to some. Immediately after the race, some irresponsible members high up in the US Swimming community made some accusations that she "must have been doping" to go that fast. While it's certainly true that China, like other countries, has had a checkered distant past mired in drug scandals, but there is also ample evidence that they have cleaned up their act in the past 10 years or so. In any event, their swimmers go through the same testing as every other swimming athlete does, and Ye Shiwen has been tested MANY times in the past and there have NEVER been any evidence of any cheating on her part. It was a totally baseless and unfair accusation to be made in such a public way. So instead of enjoying her success and pride in her performance, she and her coaches spent most of the Games answered dumb media "speculation" questions wondering if she was "cheating". It was an "ugly" stain on the swimming part of the games and caused a little bit of an "International Sporting Incident" between the US and China. Some old ugly scabs got picked off for sure. Secretly, I had worried that might be an issue on our visit, but I know how I felt on the matter, so whatever happen, there was that. Besides, no one made any promises either way, so I figured that if we played our cards right, maybe we'd get lucky.
We had already had dinner with the head of all Sport Development in Hangzhou and plus we had had some great social dinners with all of Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen's early development coaches, including Wei Wei, her very first coach. Wei Wei is one of our hosts and he was one of the coaches we hosted in the US earlier this year. We developed a very good friendship with him in the past year. He and Jiang, who is his manager at the DaQuan School are just all around great people. So it really didn't matter if we got to meet their champions or not, we have already made some great friends on this trip and that in and of itself is all we really were looking for. Sure enough, on the drive over, Both Jiang and Wei Wei were cautioning us that our trip might be very short and that both Ye and Sun "might" not be there. Something about them having to go to Shanghai at the last minute or something. At this point, we're friends so we had honest discussion about what happened to her at the games and how unfair it was. Bottom line though, it's been less then a month and neither Ye Shiwen, Sun Yang, or any of their coaches have met with, or have been given access to ANY other Westerners since returning from London. We would be the first. They just weren't sure she was ready, or they felt anyone from the west deserved to be introduced to them. I could totally appreciate it. I figured we get the "2-minute" rush tour, while the swimmers hid in the locker room and we'd be shooed out of there pretty quickly. As we walked in the rather large pool area, you could feel some tension in the air. For the first time since being her, I was a little uncomfortable.
As fortune would have it, last year when I was here in Hangzhou last December, I had an occasion to meet (and share a few toasts with) Coach Zhuzhi gen, who is Sun Yang's coach and the Head Provincial Coach. Wei Wei skillfully reintroduced us and he remembered me from that visit. I showed him the picture we took that day on my I phone. We shared a few laughs about it and I offered some very nice words for him and his success in London. Coach Phil and Dan were right behind me and they equally gracious and the mood lightened considerable. Soon we were walking around the facility and were shown a few different things here and there. There were a few groups in the water and a few kids milling about on deck. We were just walking along and we came to a group of girls stretching and getting out of the pool. I recognized Ye Shiwen immediately. Wei Wei went over to her and spoke to her for a few minutes, and then they both walked over and we were all introduced. We shared a few nice words and she smiled and was just as warm, shy and humble as you expect any 16 year old kid meeting a bunch of strangers would be. She agreed to take a photo with us all and proceeded to do just that. After a few more words with Wei Wei, she walked over to a table where Jiang had laid out a few swim caps and she signed one for each of us. After a few more words, she was off to go hang with her friends (practice had ended) or to do what any other 16 year old does after practice.
Coach Tim and World Record Holder Ye Shiwen.
While all this was going on, I couldn't help looking a few other swimmers in the pool and I noticed Sun Yang's BEAUTIFUL stroke from a mile away. We continued our tour and meeting the other coaches for another 45 minutes or so and ended up at the end of the pool as Sun Yang was just finishing warm down (we videoed some of it). Again, introductions and kind words all around and a few pictures later, he strolled over to the table and signed his name on the cap right above Ye Shiwen's name. He was very gracious with us. He even knows a little English. It was a privilege meeting such a well-mannored, and humble dude (out of the water). There was NO discomfort after the few few minutes and we spent over 1.5 hours there. They gathered up the caps for us and we were off. Later as we all marveled at our good fortune, Jiang shared with us that because both Sun Yang and Ye are national heroes, and they are somewhat limited with who they come in contact with, there is a huge market for ANYTHING autographed by them. In fact, on China's versions of eBay, Sun Yang's autograph has sold for 150,000 Yuan (or $24,000 USD). I asked them what the caps would be worth with both of their signatures on it? His reply.......... "there is no price because those never existed until now". So based on a few toast's 8-9 months ago, and a few nice congratulatory words, we were presented with probably the only 3 caps with both of their signatures that exist outside of China. I feel pretty honored by that. Our friendship with Wei Wei (who has coached both Ye and Sun before) obviously had quite a bit to do with it too.
Coach Phil, Tim, Sun Yang, Jiang and Dan.
All in all, it was a great day, and one that wasn't even over. In the afternoon, we traveled to Wuxi, to have dinner with the president of the Wuxi Sports School and the Director of Sport Development for Wuxi (a city of 8 million). I'll dedicate a separate blog post for that.
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