Internationally famous Chinese man Yao Ming has been color-commentating the men's basketball games on CCTV, but as has always been his case, he's too intelligent and opinionated to be boxed in by his sport. Very recently, as reported by Reuters, he spoke on the record with Xinhua about the badminton and Ye Shiwen controversies: "(The) same kind of things happen in basketball. It's a simple question. Is the ...

A Ye Shiwen ad on CCTV-5 preceded the race. Coming off the block in the fourth lane, she appeared to emerge from the water and break into the butterfly too early, but she was still in first place coming off the turn. She was barely in first after the backstroke, but slipped to third after the backstroke. It was quickly apparently, at the beginning of this final 50 meters, that she was going to win. We said ...

While we all await Ye Shiwen's next race -- she's the top qualifier (and Olympic record-holder) in the 200-meter individual medley, which begins at 8:43 pm London time / 3:43 am Beijing time -- you might be interested to know that women's gymnastics is on right now. Other Olympics stuff happened too, as you'll see if you read on. ...

We're at the point where Ye Shiwen can no longer be found guilty in China, if that makes sense. This issue has become about more than swimming. If it ever does come to light that Ye used a banned substance, I suspect the relevant organs will find a scapegoat who admits that he accidentally put an illegal substance in her food or something, and no one -- not the media, the Chinese swim officials, the million ...

UPDATE, 6:19 pm: The Ku6 video has been pulled, but you can watch the full race on Sina here if you're within mainland China (they don't allow embedding). All eyes will be on Ye Shiwen tonight (8:43 pm London, 3:43 am Beijing) when she competes in the 200-meter individual medley (she set an Olympic record in her preliminary heat). If she's anywhere close to the lead in the final turn, the competition is, as ...

[caption id="attachment_4328" align="alignnone" width="490" caption="John Leonard and Ye Shiwen"][/caption] Ye Shiwen, the 16-year-old swimmer who set a new world record on Saturday in the 400-meter individual medley, has been accused of cheating. The Guardian's Andy Bull, who on Sunday published a very interesting and insightful account of Ye's swim and the reactions to it and her teammates ("Over the cour ...

[caption id="attachment_4302" align="alignnone" width="490" caption="Lars Baron / Getty Images"][/caption] Aside from the men's gymnastics team losing pommel horse gold medalist Teng Haibin to injury, China's Olympics are going just swell. Some highlights: ...