Ye Shiwen was born in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province in eastern China. Her father Ye Qingsong was a runner in his youth, and her mother Ning Yiqing, who was a champion long jumper at school, works for a washing machine company.[2] She started swimming at the age of 6 after her kindergarten teacher noticed she had large hands and feet, joining the Chen Jinglun Sport School in the city.[1][2] She won the 50m freestyle at the 2006 Zhejiang Provincial Games.[3] By 2007, she was on the provincial swimming team,[2] and was on the Chinese national team by 2008,[2] attending the national junior training camp for two months from October of that year.[4]
She trained in Brisbane, Australia with two world-class coaches, Ken Wood and Denis Cotterell, training that Ye described as "really harsh … but helpful".[5][2][3] Her coach Xu Guoyi stated in 2011 that the training in Australia had helped Ye improve her two weaker swimming strokes, with her strengths being the backstroke and the freestyle.[2]
At the 2012 Summer Olympics, in the third heat of the Women's 400m Individual Medley she swam 4:31.73, an improvement of 2 seconds over her previous best time at the 2010 Asian Games.[7] In the final she won the gold medal and broke the world record (held by Stephanie Rice since the 2008 Summer Olympics) with a time of 4:28.43, an improvement of a further 3 seconds, swimming the last 50m in 28.93 seconds.[8][9] Ye's time over the final 50m was compared to that of Ryan Lochte, the winner of the corresponding men's event, who swam it just under a fifth of a second slower in 29.10. This prompted allegations of doping against Ye. However, commentators pointed out that these two times were misleading. Lochte's overall time was 23.25 seconds faster, 4:05.18, than Ye's, and the times of all 8 finalists in the men's 400m IM were at least 10 seconds faster than Ye's time. When Lochte hit the freestyle leg of the race, he had a comfortable lead over his opponents, whereas Ye was still a body length behind U.S. swimmer Elizabeth Beisel at that point in her race.[6][10] Phil Lutton, sports editor of the Brisbane Times, observed that Ye "had to hit the burners to motor past Beisel".[6]
Although there was speculation regarding Ye's significant improvement over a relatively short time,[11][12] Phil Lutton pointed out that Ye had grown from 160cm at the time of the 2010 Games to 172cm at the 2012 Olympics, and that "[t]hat sort of difference in height, length of stroke and size of hand leads to warp-speed improvement".[6] Former Olympic swimming champions Ian Thorpe and Adrian Moorhouse said that they had also improved their personal bests due to growth spurts.[13] The British Olympic Association chairman Colin Moynihan stated in a news conference that Ye had passed drug tests and "deserved recognition for her talent".[10][14][15][16]
Women's 200m Individual Medley
In the 200m Individual Medley final on 31 July 2012, Ye was in third place at the start of the final leg of the race.[17][18] But she again overtook her competitors in the freestyle leg, winning the gold medal with the time 2:07.57, a new Olympic record.[17][18] In preliminary heats she had swum 2:08.90, the same time that she achieved in the 2011 World Championships and her tenth best time of all time, with splits of 28.16, 1:00.54, and 1:38.17.[19]
Major wins
2010 Chinese Nationals – 1st 200 m individual medley
2010 China Water Games – 1st 200 m individual medley; 3rd 400 m individual medley
2010 FINA Swimming World Cup (Beijing Leg) – 1st 200 m individual medley; 1st 400 m individual medley; 1st 100 m freestyle
China
1st 200 m individual medley
3rd 400 m individual medley
2nd 200 m individual medley; 
