With all due respect to Pythagoras, Eratosthenes and Aristotle, those contemporaries of the ancient Greek Games, the Earth is not round. It is flat, rectangular and barely 50 metres in its largest dimension. It is entirely covered in water, a deceptive azure. The buoys that separate the width into eight parallel lines are an optical illusion. There are in fact only two camps separated by an iron curtain, a floating model, with the West on one side and, Russia being excluded from the competition because of the war in Ukraine, China on the other. So, while Léon Marchand is making French hearts flutter, a geopolitical battle, a planetary confrontation of a completely different dimension is being played out in the pretty bathtub of Paris La Défense Arena.
In the race for medals – which is also a promotion of the respective political systems – swimming is indeed one of the rare Olympic venues where the two blocs measure themselves head-on, with great strokes of overmuscled arms and frenetic kicks of feet. And how can we not think, for those who are old enough, of the swimming war that the West and the East engaged in in the 1970s and 1980s. Mark Spitz, John Naber and their American ilk against Kornelia Ender, Ulrike Richter and the other East German swimmers… “Water power”, a wet form of “soft power”.
Until Wednesday, July 31, the United States, Australia and Great Britain, all in their fierce but friendly confrontation, had crushed China. The rehearsal of their anthems was barely disturbed by a Marseillaise in honor of the leonine Marchand. Not a San Min Chu-i was still echoing under the celestial vault of the Arena. China, which had won six medals, including three gold in Tokyo, was languishing at best on the second or third step of the podium, when it was not finishing in the “etc.” of the ranking; “only” two silver medals and as many bronze before the final of the 100 m freestyle, closing the day.
Persecution and protest
The delegation was also embroiled in a nasty doping affair that was three years old but revealed in the spring. Twenty-three swimmers from the country had tested positive in February 2021, just before the Tokyo Games. The national federation had argued that it was food-borne and therefore accidental. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had received the argument and discreetly closed the case. Until it was revealed, like a swimmer or a corpse, by the New York Times and the German channel ARD. Today, WADA is accused in the United States, by the American anti-doping agency, but also by Congress, which has taken up the case, of having practiced preferential treatment towards Chinese athletes.
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