Even with his career on the line, Chinese swimmer Sun Yang couldn’t resist having a crack at his Aussie critics
Controversial swimmer Sun Yang sends subtle warning to Mack Horton, saying he’d love nothing better than to win gold in Tokyo to silence the critics who want him kicked out of the sport.
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Even in one of his darkest moments, Sun Yang just couldn’t resist the temptation to take another swipe at his Australian critics and fire a subtle warning to Mack Horton.
The hot-headed Chinese swimmer has never hidden his dislike of Australians during his long-running feud with Horton so with the eyes of the world watching him on the witness stand, he couldn’t stop himself from having another crack.
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His target this time was The Sunday Telegraph, which exclusively published the full report — both in English and Mandarin — into how he escaped with a warning after going on the rampage with a hammer last year.
That was the trigger for the unprecedented protests at this year’s world championships in South Korea where Horton and Britain’s Duncan Scott refused to join him on the medal podium, which Sun insists was the work of dark forces in Australia.
“Some Australian media disclosed some very detailed information from this confidential recent decision made by the FINA doping panel,” he said.
“I feel there was a black power in operation behind all this media coverage.”
Sun also fired a warning to his most vocal critic Horton, saying that if he does get to continue his career he would love nothing better than to win a fourth gold medal at next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Horton famously beat Sun for gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics but the Chinese avenged that loss by beating the Aussie at the world championship and didn’t miss the chance to let him know about it.
“I can go back to practise harder and just hope if I can win number four that would be feedback to them,” Sun said.
Whether Sun gets that chance or not all depends on the outcome from his Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing, with a verdict not expected for at least a month, possibly longer.
While Sun said he’s confident of winning the case, he admitted that he couldn’t give a damn what his legion of critics will say about him if he’s banned because he’s satisfied that he did nothing wrong and the world knows it after he agreed to hold his appeal in public.
“Actually, I really wanted to invite them to be here (in Switzerland) to enjoy this hearing with me,” he said.
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“As the greatest swimmer in the world, I think it’s just a problem out there so I don’t care what other people say about this, I just be myself.
“It’s all right actually. We already told the world what the truth is in what happened on the night so just let it be.
“Let’s just relax and go back to China now and put myself into practice. That’s what I’ve been doing for over a year now. Basically my team and I just wanted to say what we wanted to say.”
