As the first Chinese man to win a world swimming championship, Zhang Lin is already being compared with national sporting icons Yao Ming and Liu Xiang . He may also be remembered for setting a world record that will stand for a long time. Sadly, however, the reason for this takes some of the gloss off a remarkable achievement.
Zhang won fairly and squarely, slashing an astonishing 61/2 seconds off the 800-metres freestyle record. But this astonishing time, along with those for the unprecedented number of records set at the championship, is attributed to the latest performance-enhancing polyurethane swimsuits many competitors wear.
One who did not was American superstar Michael Phelps, who made do with an inferior year-old version and paid the price. The swimmer acclaimed as the greatest ever after his feats at the Athens and Beijing Olympics was barely recognisable as the man who finished a distant second in the 200-metres freestyle as German Paul Biedermann smashed his world record.
What set swimming apart not so long ago was that it was contested without equipment or accessories that could be tweaked to tilt a level playing field. Little wonder that technology is now accused of destroying the true spirit of competition.
The sport's world governing body, Fina, has belatedly agreed to ban polyurethane-based swimsuits, but perhaps not until well into next year. Meanwhile, more records are expected to fall.
What, then, are we to make of the record books in the future? Should long-standing records attributable to outlawed technology be qualified with an asterisk? One person who thinks so is former American great Janet Evans, who won four Olympic gold medals against East Germans later exposed as state-sponsored drug cheats. Then she would still get recognition for an 800-metre record that stood for 19 years until a polyurethane-assisted performance at the Beijing Olympics.