All hail our new sprint medley overlord: fifteen-year-old* Ye Shiwen!
At the end of the breastroke leg, Ye turned in FIFTH. Defending champion Ariana Kukors looked to have it sewn up after a great middle 100, with Alicia Coutts snapping at her heels and Steph Rice hanging on for dear life in hope of a bronze medal. Ye was nearly a second and a half behind the leaders.
In the heats, Ye swam 30.30 on her freestyle leg. In the semis, Ye swam 29.88. On that last leg in the final, with the home crowd roaring her on, Ye swam 29.42, which is a tenth quicker than the final split of the 36th ranked dude in the men’s 200m free heats.
Assuming Ye sticks around longer than the average Chinese swimmer then Siobhan-Marie is going to have to spend the rest of her swimming career learning how to beat this girl.
*Well, I assume she’s 15 given the Chinese team’s habit of registering their team members birthdays as ‘1st January’.
(Source: swimthefly)
