The Chinese were dominating women's swimming and the sceptics were pointing the finger. With good reason, as it turned out.
Although Li Jingyi, the broad-shouldered sprinter who won in Atlanta never failed any doping tests, many of her compatriots did.
China had a spate of positive doping cases in the 1990s. The most spectacular came in 1998 when a female swimmer and coach were disqualified from the world championships in Australia after being caught with 13 vials of muscle-building human growth hormone at Sydney airport.
Embarrassed, Chinese authorities clamped down and the country's domination of women's swimming ended as quickly as it began.
China did not win a single medal in swimming at the 2000 Olympics but have been slowly crawling their way back up the table. At the last Olympics in London, China won five golds but it has been almost two decades since a Chinese woman won the sport's blue riband event.
Shen Duo was not even alive when the Atlanta Olympics took place, born the following year. Now a teenager, she is suddenly emerging as China's best chance to end their drought.
Standing at 180cm (5ft 11in), she has all the physical attributes of a world class swimmer and is starting to make a big splash.
Last month, she won six gold medals at the Youth Olympics in her homeland. Her wins included the 100m freestyle, where she set a junior world record.
Now competing at her first senior meet, the Asian Games, she has two gold medals from the first two nights of the swimming competition.
She picked up her first in a relay on Sunday and her second on Monday, in the individual 100m event.
Tang Yi won the Asian title four years ago and then a bronze medal at the London Olympics. Tang finished runner-up to Chen on Monday and was impressed even if her junior team mate was not.
Shen's winning time of 54.37 seconds was nothing special and slower than what she recorded at the Youth Olympics but time is on her side and she should be at her peak when Rio rolls around.
"I am not that satisfied with today's result, but I did get the medal," she said. "I think there were too many events at the previous games so I have not fully recovered.
"I will do better next time."
(Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
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