China’s athlete identification approach has proven successful, but it’s not the only way

One of the most remarkable stories of the Olympics thus far has been that of 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen, who earned gold in the women's 400-metre individual medley Saturday. The dominance Ye showed went well beyond merely topping the podium; she not only became the first swimmer to break a world record at these Games (significant, considering that the speedy polyurethane suits used in Beijing are no longer allowed), she also swam the final 50 metres faster than the men's gold medalist in the same event, American Ryan Lochte. Yet, while Ye's remarkable time has some (including World Swimming Coaches Association executive director John Leonard) raising the spectre of doping, no evidence on that front has been found. What there is proof of is that Ye and many of her decorated teammates have come up through China's athlete identification system, which stands in stark contrast to most other countries' approaches and has proven successful, but isn't necessarily superior.

Ye's far from the only young Chinese swimmer achieving success in London. 17-year-old Li Xuanxu took bronze in that same women's 400-metre individual medley, while 20-year-old Sun Yang has already claimed gold in the men's 400-metre freestyle and could dominate the other freestyle distances. The meteoric rise of these Chinese swimmers has raised questions of if they're on different substances than everyone else, but no one has dug up solid proof of that. What there is firm evidence for is that they've come through a radically different system of athlete identification. In most Olympic countries, athletes choose their sports and then tend to devote most of their lives to training for them. That's not the case in China. As The Guardian's Andy Bull details, the Chinese strategy is much more about identifying Olympic-calibre athletes at a young age and then directing them into whatever sport authorities feel is the best physical match for them:

That's an approach China has also used in basketball, gymnastics and diving, and it's found some success on all of those fronts. However, those from other countries shouldn't necessarily start demanding that their national Olympic bodies follow suit and start telling athletes what sports to play based on body type information alone. For one thing, it's much more than just genetics that can affect Olympic medals; the willingness to train hard year-round even when the Games are years away and the perseverance to stick with a sport through injury can be crucial as well, and even in the Olympics, there are mental factors such as experience that come into play. For another, there's plenty of evidence that forcing kids into a certain sport and pushing them hard once there isn't necessarily a good thing.

It also stands out that despite these efforts from China and the vast amounts of money and organizational efforts that country's pouring into sports and identifying athletes, the Americans (whose approach is generally based around the opposite philosophy of having athletes find their way to particular sports on their own) are projected to beat them in the medal standings by both Sports Illustrated and Forbes. Moreover, as with many stories involving China, a key question is what we don't see. Sure, athletes like Ye, Li and Sunhave done well in the sports they've been sent into, but you're obviously going to have some high-profile successes when a country with that kind of population focuses so heavily on picking physically-gifted kids and sending them to well-funded training programs. It worked for Ye, obviously, but are there masses of other athletes out there who were forced into a sport they didn't care for and failed as a result, while they might have succeeded in something they enjoyed more?

It's absolutely worth recognizing the magnitude of what Ye accomplished here. As the Toronto Star's Cathal Kelly opined, "This may now be the only power event in world sport in which a woman is the best, period. A girl, really." That might be going a bit far; Ye's overall time of 4:28:43 was still 23 seconds slower than Lochte's 4:05:18, and it's not that Ye's necessarily a better freestyler either. The 400-metre medley involves swimming 100 metres with each stroke (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle), and while Ye beat Lochte in the final 50 metres, he edged her slightly (58.65 to 58.68 seconds) in the full 100 metres of the freestyle. Still, Ye's swim was extraordinary; it's the best women's 400-metre medley performance ever recorded and its freestyle component was comparable to the best men's performance. That's why her performance drawing so much attention, and China's decision to send her into swimming based solely on her physical dimensions is certainly part of how she got here. It shouldn't necessarily be seen as an endorsement of that philosophy, though.