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Summer Olympics 2012 London
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The divers at the London Olympics have repeatedly impressed with their skill, grace and athleticism.
But last night the springboard competitors gave a spectacular demonstration of what happens when those traits desert them.
Germany's Stephan Feck attempted a somersault, but lost the grip on one leg which saw him spin out of control and land flat on the water flat on his back with a huge thud.
He climbed out of the pool apparently unhurt after huge gasps from the crowd during the men's three-metre springboard, but received zeroes from all the judges.
But last night the springboard competitors gave a spectacular demonstration of what happens when those traits desert them.
Germany's Stephan Feck attempted a somersault, but lost the grip on one leg which saw him spin out of control and land flat on the water flat on his back with a huge thud.
He climbed out of the pool apparently unhurt after huge gasps from the crowd during the men's three-metre springboard, but received zeroes from all the judges.
Ye Shiwen: Can statistics explain her win?
When 16-year-old swimmer Ye Shiwen set a new world record for the 400m medley, eyebrows were raised about the margin of her victory, despite her passing all the drugs tests. But does a closer look at the figures really reveal anything unusual?
There was Olympic controversy last week when Ye Shiwen, a young Chinese swimmer, won the 400m individual women's medley in fine style.
Her blistering final 50m was faster than American male swimmer Ryan Lochte's final 50m in the men's event, despite him swimming one of the fastest overall times in history.
John Leonard, the executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association - but not a member of the US Olympic team - called the performance "disturbing", forcing the swimmer to deny that she had used performance-enhancing drugs.
Ye Shiwen has never failed a drugs test and says the criticism is just "sour grapes".
So can the various elements to her record-breaking swim be simply explained?
1. She beat her personal best by five seconds
Why teen athletes make big gains
Ye Shiwen is very young and still growing.
She's 12cm taller than she was two years ago, when she was 14, and so you would expect her times to improve.
The Australian swimming legend, Ian Thorpe, said this week that he beat his personal best by five seconds when he was a teenager.
One of Ye's fellow swimmers in the 400m individual medley was Australian Stephanie Rice.
Rice beat her personal best in 2008 by six seconds when she set a world record.
Sport scientists say that during a teenage growth spurt, there is a release of hormones that can suddenly increase the powers of endurance.
2. She 'smashed' the world record
Ye set a new world record time of four minutes 28.43 seconds, beating the previous mark by more than a second.
But to take the case of Stephanie Rice, again, she beat the world record by a wider margin back in 2008.
It's impressive but it's not that remarkable.
3. She swam faster than Ryan Lochte
Lochte was 23 seconds faster than Ye overall. She only swam faster than him in the final stage - freestyle.
The comparison with Lochte just isn't that telling. It's not the first time that Lochte has been slower than a woman over the last leg of that race. In Beijing in 2008 when he won bronze, he was slower than the Italian Alessia Fillipi - by more than half a second - and she only came fifth in her own race.
Lochte simply paced himself over the race very differently to Ye Shiwen.
Dr Ross Tucker from the Sports Science Institute at the University of Cape Town warns against reading too much into the comparison with Lochte.
"Lochte didn't swim [the last leg] as fast as some of the other men in that same race. Ye's performance compared to the best men for that leg was maybe not that impressive," he says.
Tucker points out that Rebecca Adlington swam faster than both Lochte and Ye in the final leg of the 800m freestyle at the world championships last year.
"The point is," he says, "that analysing performance and trying to prove doping is a futile task."
He does confirm, however, that Ye Shiwen's performance was exceptional.
"At the last world championships, the top five swimmers of the 400m individual medley are doing the final 100m freestyle about 18-20% slower than the 100 freestyle world record - whereas Ye Shiwen was about 12% slower."
Are there other measures we can apply?
There is another measure one can look at which suggests the race was unusual. Reza Noubary, a maths professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, has applied "threshold theory" to world records in the past.
Continue reading the main story
More or Less: Behind the stats
He takes the previous best performances and the amount of time that elapses between them and establishes what records are possible. He looked at the 10 best times for the 400m individual medley before Ye Shiwen beat the world record and came up with an estimate - with 90% confidence.
"Based on these 10 measurements," he says, "the lower band should be 4:29.01. She did it 4:28.43. So in that sense you may call that exceptional."
Ye Shiwen is extraordinary but sometimes we get extraordinary athletes. When Professor Noubary ran the data on the men's 100m track race - before Usain Bolt first broke the world record in 2009 - he said with 90% confidence that the next record wouldn't exceed 9.62 seconds. Bolt's record stands at 9.58 seconds.
There is a cloud that has hung over Chinese swimming ever since 32 of their swimmers tested positive in the 1990s.
And only seven months ago, another teenage swimmer tested positive for the drug EPO.
But none of that means we should doubt Ye Shiwen's integrity, and there is certainly no statistical smoking gun.
When 16-year-old swimmer Ye Shiwen set a new world record for the 400m medley, eyebrows were raised about the margin of her victory, despite her passing all the drugs tests. But does a closer look at the figures really reveal anything unusual?
There was Olympic controversy last week when Ye Shiwen, a young Chinese swimmer, won the 400m individual women's medley in fine style.
Her blistering final 50m was faster than American male swimmer Ryan Lochte's final 50m in the men's event, despite him swimming one of the fastest overall times in history.
John Leonard, the executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association - but not a member of the US Olympic team - called the performance "disturbing", forcing the swimmer to deny that she had used performance-enhancing drugs.
Ye Shiwen has never failed a drugs test and says the criticism is just "sour grapes".
So can the various elements to her record-breaking swim be simply explained?
1. She beat her personal best by five seconds
Why teen athletes make big gains
Ye Shiwen is very young and still growing.
She's 12cm taller than she was two years ago, when she was 14, and so you would expect her times to improve.
The Australian swimming legend, Ian Thorpe, said this week that he beat his personal best by five seconds when he was a teenager.
One of Ye's fellow swimmers in the 400m individual medley was Australian Stephanie Rice.
Rice beat her personal best in 2008 by six seconds when she set a world record.
Sport scientists say that during a teenage growth spurt, there is a release of hormones that can suddenly increase the powers of endurance.
2. She 'smashed' the world record
Ye set a new world record time of four minutes 28.43 seconds, beating the previous mark by more than a second.
But to take the case of Stephanie Rice, again, she beat the world record by a wider margin back in 2008.
It's impressive but it's not that remarkable.
3. She swam faster than Ryan Lochte
Lochte was 23 seconds faster than Ye overall. She only swam faster than him in the final stage - freestyle.
The comparison with Lochte just isn't that telling. It's not the first time that Lochte has been slower than a woman over the last leg of that race. In Beijing in 2008 when he won bronze, he was slower than the Italian Alessia Fillipi - by more than half a second - and she only came fifth in her own race.
Lochte simply paced himself over the race very differently to Ye Shiwen.
Dr Ross Tucker from the Sports Science Institute at the University of Cape Town warns against reading too much into the comparison with Lochte.
"Lochte didn't swim [the last leg] as fast as some of the other men in that same race. Ye's performance compared to the best men for that leg was maybe not that impressive," he says.
Tucker points out that Rebecca Adlington swam faster than both Lochte and Ye in the final leg of the 800m freestyle at the world championships last year.
"The point is," he says, "that analysing performance and trying to prove doping is a futile task."
He does confirm, however, that Ye Shiwen's performance was exceptional.
"At the last world championships, the top five swimmers of the 400m individual medley are doing the final 100m freestyle about 18-20% slower than the 100 freestyle world record - whereas Ye Shiwen was about 12% slower."
Are there other measures we can apply?
There is another measure one can look at which suggests the race was unusual. Reza Noubary, a maths professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, has applied "threshold theory" to world records in the past.
Continue reading the main story
More or Less: Behind the stats
He takes the previous best performances and the amount of time that elapses between them and establishes what records are possible. He looked at the 10 best times for the 400m individual medley before Ye Shiwen beat the world record and came up with an estimate - with 90% confidence.
"Based on these 10 measurements," he says, "the lower band should be 4:29.01. She did it 4:28.43. So in that sense you may call that exceptional."
Ye Shiwen is extraordinary but sometimes we get extraordinary athletes. When Professor Noubary ran the data on the men's 100m track race - before Usain Bolt first broke the world record in 2009 - he said with 90% confidence that the next record wouldn't exceed 9.62 seconds. Bolt's record stands at 9.58 seconds.
There is a cloud that has hung over Chinese swimming ever since 32 of their swimmers tested positive in the 1990s.
And only seven months ago, another teenage swimmer tested positive for the drug EPO.
But none of that means we should doubt Ye Shiwen's integrity, and there is certainly no statistical smoking gun.
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London Olympics: Cameroon athletes 'abscond'
Serge Ambomo is one of five boxers to have gone missing
Olympic torchbearer goes missing
Seven Cameroonian athletes have absconded while in Britain for the Olympics, officials say.
The seven, including five boxers, are suspected of having decided to stay in Europe for economic reasons, Reuters news agency reports.
A reserve goalkeeper for the women's soccer team, Drusille Ngako, was the first to disappear, the agency quoted Cameroon's Olympic mission as saying.
In June, an Ethiopian torchbearer, Natnael Yemane, 15, also disappeared.
He went missing from a hotel in Nottingham.
"What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true," Team Cameroon mission head David Ojong said, in a letter sent to the Cameroonian sports ministry.
"Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village."
Ngako was the first to disappear while her teammates left for Coventry for their last preparatory encounter against New Zealand, he said.
Her disappearance was followed by that of swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue and five boxers eliminated from the games.
Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo, disappeared on Sunday from the Olympic village, Mr Ojong said.
-----------
Seven Cameroon athletes including five boxers knocked out of competition disappear from Olympic Village
Seven Cameroon athletes who have disappeared whilst in Britain may be intending to claim asylum, according to an official from the country.
Mission head, David Ojong, said that the seven sportsmen, including five boxers, are suspected of having left to stay in Europe for economic reasons.
'What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true. Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village,' Mr Ojong, said in a message sent to Cameroon's Ministry of Sports and Physical Education.
The seven - who are members of Cameroon's Olympic team - pictured during the opening ceremony, may be intending to claim asylum in Britain after going missing
The five boxers all disappeared after being eliminated from the games.
Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo, went missing on Sunday from the Olympic village.
Two other athletes - a swimmer and a football player - may also be intending to claim asylum.
Reserve women's goalkeeper, Drusille Ngako, who was not one of the 18 included in the final squad for the Olympics, went missing shortly before Cameroon's last friendly match.
Whilst her team-mates left for Coventry for their game against New Zealand, she vanished.
A few days later, swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue and his personal belongings were also not found in his room.
Five boxers in the Cameroonian Olympic team went missing on Sunday from the athletes' village, pictured
International Olympic Committee officials said they had not been notified about the missing athletes.
'We are unaware of it,' IOC spokesman Mark Adams said when asked whether organisers had heard of it.
The disappearances are not the first time Cameroonian athletes have gone missing during international sports competitions.
At past Francophonie and Commonwealth games events, as well as at junior soccer competitions, several Cameroonians have quit their delegation without official consent.
Serge Ambomo is one of five boxers to have gone missing
Olympic torchbearer goes missing
Seven Cameroonian athletes have absconded while in Britain for the Olympics, officials say.
The seven, including five boxers, are suspected of having decided to stay in Europe for economic reasons, Reuters news agency reports.
A reserve goalkeeper for the women's soccer team, Drusille Ngako, was the first to disappear, the agency quoted Cameroon's Olympic mission as saying.
In June, an Ethiopian torchbearer, Natnael Yemane, 15, also disappeared.
He went missing from a hotel in Nottingham.
"What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true," Team Cameroon mission head David Ojong said, in a letter sent to the Cameroonian sports ministry.
"Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village."
Ngako was the first to disappear while her teammates left for Coventry for their last preparatory encounter against New Zealand, he said.
Her disappearance was followed by that of swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue and five boxers eliminated from the games.
Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo, disappeared on Sunday from the Olympic village, Mr Ojong said.
-----------
Seven Cameroon athletes including five boxers knocked out of competition disappear from Olympic Village
Seven Cameroon athletes who have disappeared whilst in Britain may be intending to claim asylum, according to an official from the country.
Mission head, David Ojong, said that the seven sportsmen, including five boxers, are suspected of having left to stay in Europe for economic reasons.
'What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true. Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village,' Mr Ojong, said in a message sent to Cameroon's Ministry of Sports and Physical Education.
The seven - who are members of Cameroon's Olympic team - pictured during the opening ceremony, may be intending to claim asylum in Britain after going missing
The five boxers all disappeared after being eliminated from the games.
Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo, went missing on Sunday from the Olympic village.
Two other athletes - a swimmer and a football player - may also be intending to claim asylum.
Reserve women's goalkeeper, Drusille Ngako, who was not one of the 18 included in the final squad for the Olympics, went missing shortly before Cameroon's last friendly match.
Whilst her team-mates left for Coventry for their game against New Zealand, she vanished.
A few days later, swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue and his personal belongings were also not found in his room.
Five boxers in the Cameroonian Olympic team went missing on Sunday from the athletes' village, pictured
International Olympic Committee officials said they had not been notified about the missing athletes.
'We are unaware of it,' IOC spokesman Mark Adams said when asked whether organisers had heard of it.
The disappearances are not the first time Cameroonian athletes have gone missing during international sports competitions.
At past Francophonie and Commonwealth games events, as well as at junior soccer competitions, several Cameroonians have quit their delegation without official consent.
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Team GB record breakers! Dressage team and their horses dance their way to historic 20th gold medal
The gold-medal winning performance this afternoon means that Team GB have now surpassed the 19 gold medals they bagged in Beijing
This year's Team GB is now the most successful since 1908
And it is the first time ever that Britain has won gold in an Olympic dressage competition
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wait a minute, does the poms journalists think they are paying money to switzerland IOC to host games and expect no rewards?
are they native or just plain dumb?
The gold-medal winning performance this afternoon means that Team GB have now surpassed the 19 gold medals they bagged in Beijing
This year's Team GB is now the most successful since 1908
And it is the first time ever that Britain has won gold in an Olympic dressage competition
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wait a minute, does the poms journalists think they are paying money to switzerland IOC to host games and expect no rewards?
are they native or just plain dumb?
Olympics superfan who spent every day of the Games watching events live dies of suspected heart attack at the velodrome
Conrad Readman, 49, spent months buying tickets to see every day of the London Olympics
The chartered accountant from Colchester had watched up to three sports a day during the first week and had seen Tom Daley, Rebecca Adlington and Michael Phelps in action
Died at the Velodrome after seeing Victoria Pendleton and the British team sprint trio win gold on Friday
A 'superfan' who scoured the globe for tickets so he could see every day of the London Olympics died of a suspected heart attack after watching cycling at the velodrome.
Sports fanatic Conrad Readman, 49, from Colchester, had taken two weeks off to see as much of the Games as possible, including the Opening Ceremony and many of Team GB's gold medal moments.
But he was taken ill as he watched Victoria Pendleton and the men's team pursuit trio take gold on Friday night.
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must be killed by the drinking too much coke, eat too much macdonald available in all olympic site, they are olympic sponsor after all
Quelle horreur! French accuse our cyclists of cheating after King Kenny storms to another gold medal
French team director complains that British stars are using 'magic wheels'
Going for gold: 24-year-old Jason Kenny overpowered Gregory Bauge in their final, taking his personal Olympics gold medal haul to three
But yesterday the French team’s dejected director, Isabelle Gautheron, complained that the British stars are using ‘magic wheels’.
‘We are asking a lot of questions: how have they gained so many tenths of seconds?’ she said.
‘Have they found a new training process based on certain energy pathways? I am not talking about any illicit product, because anti-doping tests are so strong.
‘We are looking a lot at the kit they use. They hide their wheels a lot. The ones for the bikes they race on are put in wheel covers at the finish.’
French team director complains that British stars are using 'magic wheels'
Going for gold: 24-year-old Jason Kenny overpowered Gregory Bauge in their final, taking his personal Olympics gold medal haul to three
But yesterday the French team’s dejected director, Isabelle Gautheron, complained that the British stars are using ‘magic wheels’.
‘We are asking a lot of questions: how have they gained so many tenths of seconds?’ she said.
‘Have they found a new training process based on certain energy pathways? I am not talking about any illicit product, because anti-doping tests are so strong.
‘We are looking a lot at the kit they use. They hide their wheels a lot. The ones for the bikes they race on are put in wheel covers at the finish.’
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