Well, she certainly does look extremely lean espec in her abs in those yourswimlog.com pictures, which is highly unusual for a female swimmer. And the Swimming World mag article points out that Hosszu herself said after the 2012 oly games that she thought the Chinese girl had doped since she went so fast on the last 100 of the 400 IM, so one could certainly see how she could feel it was time to "even the game up". The only thing in the story that does not fit is that she does sometimes seem human, as in her 9th place finish in the 400 free after winning the 200 free at last year's WCs. So, occasionally she does seem human, but of course maybe her coaches planned that purposefully. Hungary is a former Soviet satellite, and the Russians have admitted recent doping. I hate to think about with Katinka though b/c she has always seemed such a "wholesome" sort of girl:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

say like dara torres at age 40 with corrugated iron abs

knowing the current political environment in Hungary, I would not be suprprised (if she is doping), that her performance enhancement is sponsored by the highest level of government

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

which at age 24, when there is little physiological reason for the ovaries to stop making female hormones to round out the body with nice fat pads (which at age 40 is plausible) makes it even more suspect that Katinka's extreme lean-ness is not quite natural.....

her body resembles more that of a long course male triathlete, than a short course female swimmer.....

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

Ya, agree 100%. If she is indeed doping, then the Hungary gov is in on it.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

can we assume the multitudes of females competitively participating in crossfit are also doping? Because they look similar. I think as society we are failing to accept in cases that the game has stepped up... cross training, proper eating, rest is required amongst all athletes. You cant get away with just sport specific training anymore. Doping control is better than ever, but there are a few grains of salt.

I wouldn't look to her physique as evidence that she might be doping. She is very lean and fit, but, not unheard of even amongst some amateurs. I see girls that ripped at my local gym. I know a few girls currently gung-ho on the crossfit train who look like that. I wouldn't think it's unheard of for a world class athlete to have that type of physique.

It's a hard comparison to make to the eastern ladies of the 70's, who were freakish not in how lean they were, but in their frame size, mass and the fact that, you know, they looked amazingly like large, muscular men...

Her times are crazy fast, but is anyone here pointing a skeptics eye at Franklin or Ledecky?

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Her build is certainly achievable naturally (if you picked your parents well, which I'll assume she did), there are a decent number of amateur females who attend crossfit etc and look like this without anything fishy going on.

The question of whether somebody would end up looking like this through primarily swimming, with gym work only being done to support aforementioned swimming, is a somewhat different matter.

Maybe she is somebody who's swimming performance responds well to extra gym work, hence the muscularity?
Maybe she is clean and doesn't do an abnormal amount of lifting for a swimmer, and that's just how she looks anyway?
Maybe she is juiced after all?

I don't necessarily believe in the practice of assuming somebody is juiced because they are performing well (even if it's really well).
We are examining people who are genetically at the edge of the bell curve and really "live" their sport. Of course they are going to achieve a physique that many would find to be unattainable without "help".
We demand better and better performances from these athletes, but vilify them if they give us too much.

Unless evidence other than her speed comes to light that she is dishonest then I will assume she's clean. That's not to say that I am naive to the possibility of her doping, I just don't think it is a productive way to treat our athletes.

It is common knowledge that the only sport with a rampant doping problem is cycling. Swimming, triathlon, and most Olympic sports where steroids would make a huge difference are pretty much clean. They have testing, and we all know that the testing is not easy to beat. It is not like an athlete can dope but still over years and years pass hundreds of tests. Testing is so comprehensive and so sensitive that it is nearly foolproof.

Everyone needs to relax and stop being so skeptical.

I'm awarding you 100 internet points. A perfect score.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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not quite perfect - cycling has also been clean since 2009

Listen, I get it. I've observed sports for a good long time. My brain works the same as yours and the authors. I've seen it all go down.

BUT, we are participating in endeavours driven and defined by performance. We therefore should require of ourselves and others something beyond performance before casting aspersions.

I say this as fan, as a coach, and as an athlete who has been accused of cheating based solely on my performance.

That is all.

Pretty lame op-ed piece for my time spent. The media loves stirring up stuff....when they don't have any stories or controversy they go negative I get that.

I'm just not going to condemn her for having a ripped body and getting better as a swimmer, a body I have seen more than a few female collegiate amateur swimmers by the way, until she shows she is guilty of doing something other than kicking the shit out of her competition.

I think it's her ability to recover so quickly after a race that's raising eyebrows.

Yup! This.

There are lots more American athletes who who were more deserving of an article about their possible doping than this swimmer, and, quite frankly, there probably isn't another country in the world that has such a comprehensively bad relationship with performance enhancing drugs. Here in the US, we've got doped cyclists, runners, swimmers, and hilariously drugged up basketball players and football players. It's almost certainly not government sponsored like some other national sports federations, but I'd suggest that only the most oblivious observers and some Americans think Torres was clean.

If it's a sport where there's a possibility of financial gain, and people are performing fundamentally differently than what anyone has done before, while their preparation isn't substantially different, they're probably cheating.

Nobody really believes Carmalita Jeter was clean either, do they?

I have no opinion as to whether she is or isn't doping, but one thing to remember is that she is did really well at a mid season World Cup meet. For most folks at that level, it is a training meet, she has consistently done lots of events at her meets, at some wc's she wins lots, at others she gets beaten. The other thing is that not all of the best are usually at the world cups, it isn't like winning 6 or 8 events at the Olympics or world championships.

Before completely throwing her under the bus, based on nothing but her physique (lean, but not dramatically different from other elite female swimmers) and performances, it is worthwhile to remember that other swimmers have had similar levels of performance with no accusations of doping.

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lol +1

Doping ? Perhaps but , while super lean, she is lacking the bulk/mass and facial changes often associated with doping in women.

One thing for sure: She has a hot body.

OMG I want her abs

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Me too!!

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

Exactly. 400 IMs and 200 Flys are brutal. It's definitely eye popping and it's created conversations, but it's pretty far away from definitive evidence of doping.

She has always had a strong build and looked like a "typical" swimmer in her younger days. My question is (and maybe there are some sports physiologists or such here that have an answer): can a woman maintain such a lean body mass naturally and race and train so much without injury, overtraining, illness? 122lbs for 5'7" is not crazy, but hers is all muscle! (I am 5'8" and 125lbs, but I have a lot of fat and very little muscle), so her body fat% must be quite low, possibly low enough for her ovaries to be in hybernation, sort of like an early menopause? So then how does she stay healthy? Long distance female runners do have very low body fat, but they run (weight bearing), and they are lean, but not all that muscular.

Also, what is the benefit in swimming to a lean body? Maybe for her, obsessive dieting and weight lifting is keeping her psychologically healthy and she loves it?

Apparently she eats a lot of chicken and broccoli, and vitamins. I should try that. Especially the vitamins. I don't like broccoli.

For those interested, this page has selected photos of her from 2009 - 2014 that illustrate the transformation. Cudos to her, if this is all her willpower, training and healthy eating. Time will tell.

http://m.borsonline.hu/...mai_repitik_a_vizben

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

Realistically speaking I don't see her physique being that much different from Mirinda Carfrae. Mirinda is just a bit shorter, and lighter, but just as muscular and almost as lean and cut. I don't see the physique of either being that far outside lots of girls focus on fitness competitions etc Also if you look at the distance of her events, from 100m to 400m we're talking about races that are all 4 min or less, which means that anaerobic contribution is quite high and she might be on to something that a lot of swimmers are neglecting since they don't end up doing as much fast twitch focused training as their events might warrant.

This. I don't usually find the body type of most elite female swimmers all that attractive, but she is definitely an exception.

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Long Chile was a silly place.