[icarus]

Uh oh.

The first major doping controversy of the London Olympics flared to life today after John Leonard, the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, described the gold medal-winning performance of 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen in the women's 400m individual medley as "unbelievable".

Leonard, who is also the executive director of the USA Swimming Coaches Association, described Ye's swim as "disturbing" and said that it "brings back a lot of awful memories" of Irish swimmer Michelle Smith's winning performance in the same event at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Smith, now Michelle de Bruin, was banned for four years in 1998 after testing positive for androstenedione.