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It hasn't taken long for the British press to pick up on the rumours of Jonny Foreigner taking drugs at the Olympics. I suspect that the speed at which this happens is connected to the level of disappointment with the British team's performance in the pool so far.

A 16 year old Chinese swimmer won the 400 metres individual medley, knocked 5 seconds of her best time and did the last 50 metres freestyle as fast as Ryan Lochte winning the same men's event.

Curiously, Ruta Meilutyte, a 15 year old Lituanian had the 14th. fastest time in the world immediately before the Olympics and yet now she has the fastest, having won the 100 metres breaststroke. Not a single reference that she might have been taking drugs.

Why the difference? Well, this Jonny Foreigner lives and trains in Plymouth, thus seemingly discounting any rumour.

Admittedly China has lots of previous in this area, but British and American athletes are hardly blame free, are they? A bit of innocent until proven guilty wouldn't go amiss here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19062639

I think you're being overly sceptical David.

First off, it was an American (not British) swimming coach who stated that he thought the Chinese girl was on drugs.

And as far as I'm aware, he made no mention of the Lithuanian possibly being "performance enhanced" also.

Had he made such a claim (about the Lithuanian), I'm sure the meeja would have reported it in the same way.

But in any case, on BBC News this morning they were basically rubbishing it, saying "innocent until proven guilty" and emphasising that the Chinese swimmer had passed all drug tests conducted thus far.


- Eric

Eric you should know David never let's the facts ruin a good story, but fair play to him, he didn't blame Osbourne.....yet.

"First off, it was an American (not British) swimming coach who stated that he thought the Chinese girl was on drugs"

I know. Along with a number of other swimmers from different countries that used the same "unbelievable" word to describe the performance. My comment is about how the printed media interprete these stories.

"Had he made such a claim (about the Lithuanian), I'm sure the meeja would have reported it in the same way"

Not sure about that. My comment is about the printed media which tends to have more leeway than the Beeb which you refer to. I suspect if it had been a British athlete or indeed, the Lithuanian swimmer who lives and trains here, the printed media would have met the story with more scepticism than in the case of the CHinese swmmer i.e. the British media are much more comfortable believing Jonny Foreigner is on drugs than British or British trained athletes are on drugs.

For example, I remember the scepticism with which Linford Christie's drug busts were met with. Christie tested positive for the stimulant Pseudoephedrine at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but he escaped sanction after the International Olympic Committee's disciplinary committee voted by a margin of 11 to 10. At the 1994 European championships staged in Helsinki, where British team captain Christie won his third European 100m title, he was caught up in a doping controversy after Solomon Wariso, a 400m runner making his international championship debut, tested positive for the stimulant ephedrine. Wariso revealed that he had used an over-the-counter pick-you-up called "Up Your Gas", which Christie had bought at a Florida pharmacy. In 1999, Christie was found guilty of using the performance enhancing drug Nandrolone following a doping test after an indoor meet in Germany. He was found to have more than 100 times normal levels of the metabolites of nandrolone in his urine. Various explanations were offered to explain the results, including eating avocado, or using nutritional supplements.

The IAAF rejected that explanation and gave Christie a two-year ban from athletics, despite UK Athletics feeling that there was "reasonable doubt whether the drug had been taken deliberately", a decision which ignored the usual drug testing principle of "strict liability.

It's about nuance in reporting rumours in the media.

On the political front, personally I blame New Labour.