Chinese swimmers sent to military boot camp after poor showing at world championships
Australia’s swimmers enjoyed some much deserved down-time after the world championships in South Korea. It was a very different story for China’s pool stars.
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While Australia’s swimmers were kicking up their heels on Southeast Asia’s best party beaches after their golden success at the world championships, China’s elite swimmers were sent to military training after flopping in the pool.
Despite boasting the world’s biggest population, China won just three gold, and seven medals overall, at the world titles in Gwangju this month — well below expectations — and officials were not impressed.
So while the Dolphins, who finished second overall with 19 medals including five gold, let their hair down in Bali, China’s underperforming swimmers were ordered to attend a five-day camp at the People’s Liberation Army Sports Training Centre in Beijing.
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“The military training this time, which is the second time in the history of Chinese National Swim Team, was to heighten the Chinese athletes’ sense of discipline, build a tighter team spirit, increase their sense of mission, making the team members love our Chinese Communist Party and our country, so the athletes will be fully prepared for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,” the Chinese swim team leader Cheng Hao said.
Pictures posted on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, showed team members dressed in full military fatigues, reading papers in a classroom as well as standing to attention.
The attendees included double London Olympic gold medallist Ye Shiwen, two-time men’s backstroke world champion Xu Jiayu and Fu Yuanhui, who became a global internet sensation after her reaction to winning a bronze medal in the women’s backstroke at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Fu did not win any medals at this year’s world championships and was accused of spending too much time watching television but told her Weibo followers she would not give up, posting: “I am enduring some difficult times in my career but I have learned at training camp that I must keep trying, trying to make a breakthrough and never give up when encountering problems.”
The notable absentee from the military camp was Sun Yang, who once again showed he plays by different rules to everyone else.
“He consumed a lot of his energy and is physically and mentally tired,” Cheng said. “He needs to time to recuperate.”
Sun won two gold medals in Gwangju but his victories were overshadowed by the furore over his participation at the world titles while he is facing an appeal for destroying his own doping samples with a hammer at a random drug test last year.
Australia’s Mack Horton and British freestyler Duncan Scott both refused to join Sun on the medal podium, setting off a politically-charged protest that went around the world.