Chinese coaches said in a press conference on Monday that there were no secret deals with an Australian coach behind the swimming gold medal.
Liu Zige, a 19-year-old Chinese swimmer, upset world record holder Jessicah Schipper to win the women's 200m butterfly with a world record of two minutes 4.18 seconds at the Beijing Games. Reports said her gold was achieved because an Australian coach Ken Wood sold a top secret training program to her.
"The so called top-secret program was just hype and nonsense," said Chinese head coach Zhang Yadong, "she trained in Australia before, but a lot of other swimmers did too. It was her ability that made her successful."
Another swimmer Zhang Lin, silver medallist in men's 400m freestyle, also spent some time in Australia, mentored by Denis Cotterell, former coach of long distance king Grant Hackett.
Liu's winning came as a bit of a surprise as she came out to defeat the world record holder Schipper, also coached by Wood.
Liu's coach Jin Wei said she was able to swim faster than others because she was really hard on herself, and she only began to gain strength last year as her body developed fairly late.
Not surprised by the training partner's success, Schipper said it was only natural for swimmers to improve. "In 2005, I took three seconds off my personal best," she said.
Australian swimming head coach Alan Thompson said a bigger deal has been made out of this than it should be. "A lot of coaches help people overseas, and they sell their talents all over the world," he said.
"Wood did a job to assist the Chinese swimming and got paid for the job. He didn't secretly sell things," he added.
(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2008)