For Sun Yang, the 2019 FINA World Championships held in Gwangju, South Korea can be described as a constant storm. He won the gold medals in the 400m freestyle and 200m freestyle as he wished, but the memories after the competition were not good: at the award ceremony of the 400m freestyle, the silver medal winning Australian star Horton refused to accept the award on the same stage with him; After the 200m freestyle award ceremony, the bronze medalist and British player Scott refused to take a picture with him.
There were two accidents on the podium
On July 21, Sun Yang won the title in the 400m freestyle final of the world championships with a score of 3 minutes, 42 seconds and 44. He won the first gold in the individual event. At the same time, he also became the first person in the history of the event with four consecutive titles. Australian player Horton won the second place in 3:43.17 and Italian player detti won the third place.
Horton (left) refused to get on the podium.
There was a surprising scene at the award ceremony after the game: Horton refused to go on the podium to receive the award with Sun Yang, and even persuaded dety to do the same, but the latter refused. For Horton's behavior, Sun Yang responded at the post game press conference, 'the award is a very sacred moment. Everyone represents his own country. If you don't want to, you must stand on the podium. You can disrespect me, but you must respect China. " Since then, Horton did not apologize. He only said through the Australian media, "it's ok if Sun Yang doesn't respect me, but he said I don't respect China. Such remarks are unfortunate, and I'm sorry."
Scott (right) refuses to take a group photo with Sun Yang.
A similar scene appeared on July 23. Sun Yang was lucky to defend his title in the 200m freestyle final. Scott, who tied with Russia to win the third place, although boarded the podium, refused to take a photo with Sun Yang. " Big poplar chose to respond on the spot this time -- he made a fist gesture and shouted at Scott: 'I'm the winner, you're the loser!' Interestingly, Scott said in an interview with the media that day that he was a supporter of Horton, 'if Sun Yang doesn't respect swimming, why should we respect him?' But the tone of the British players changed in less than 24 hours and changed to, 'it may be a good thing for me that I get such a high exposure here.'
Fina responded to both events on the podium: a warning letter was sent to the Australian Swimming authority and Horton; Sun Yang and Scott also received a warning letter after the incident on the 23rd, citing 'improper behavior during the award ceremony'.
Two events led to the podium storm
Sun Yang's resentment against Horton and even the Western swimming community is not recent. In the men's 400m freestyle final of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Horton defeated Sun Yang by 0.13 seconds to win the championship. After the game, he called Sun Yang a "drug swindler"; At the 2017 Budapest swimming world championships, Horton said that the competition between the two was unfair because 'it was a competition between an outstanding elite athlete and an athlete with a positive drug test.' Sun Yang won three consecutive titles in the 400m freestyle World Championships. Although Horton boarded the podium at that time, he made an insulting move of sliding his legs. Unfortunately, from then to now, his insulting words and actions have received a lot of support, including famous swimmers.
Sun Yang was suspended for three months for taking drugs by mistake. Figure / osports
At that time, Horton had been taking out the incident against Sun Yang in May 2014. When Sun Yang accepted the drug test in the National Swimming Championship, the urine sample of bottle a contained the prohibited substance trimetazidine, which was included in the banned list of the World Anti Doping Agency in January 2014 and became a prohibited substance in the competition. Sun Yang was diagnosed with myocardial ischemia after myocarditis in 2008. He has been using the prescription drug 'wanshuangli' (trimetazidine hydrochloride) to improve his symptoms. However, after trimetazidine entered the list of banned drugs, Sun Yang, his coach and team doctor failed to see the new list of banned drugs in time, resulting in positive doping results in the drug test. At the subsequent hearing, Sun Yang provided a lot of evidence such as medical records to prove that he took it by mistake, which belongs to the exemption and punishment standard of the World Anti Doping Agency, so he was finally suspended for three months.
At this Gwangju World Championships, Horton was aiming at the conflict between Sun Yang and doping inspectors during his flight drug test at the end of last year. Fina ruled that Sun Yang was innocent at that time, but the World Anti Doping Agency appealed the matter to the international sports arbitration court, and the hearing of the case will be held in September.
In its warning letter to Horton, fina clearly stated that "the matter he protested is currently under review by the international sports arbitration court, so fina will not comment on it until the hearing is held and a conclusion is reached." Fina also stressed that it respects athletes' freedom of speech, 'but it also believes that anyone's freedom of speech should be expressed in the right way.'