Aussie swim stars to be targeted to start a ‘Super League’ in a bid to clean up the sport

OLYMPIC champions like Kyle Chalmers, Michael Phelps, Mack Horton and Cate Campbell are set to be targeted to start a swimming ‘Super League’ to upstage the Olympic Games.

Australia's Mack Horton has been vocal against dopers in swimming.

OLYMPIC champions like Michael Phelps, Mack Horton and Cate Campbell are set to be targeted to start a swimming ‘Super League’ to upstage the Olympic Games.

In a bold attempt to clean up the sport in the wake of IOC and FINA turning a blind eye to doping — swimmers could rise up and break away from the controversial swimming governing body.

World Swimming Coaches Association boss John Leonard — a vocal critic of FINA and the IOC handling of its doping issues — says he already has interest from top US swimmers and is understood to have already sounded out 21-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps’ camp.

Leonard said the swimmers have to “take control of their lives” exactly the same way that professional golfers and tennis players “take control of their own lives”.

USA’s Michael Phelps is understood to have been approached.

“The Olympics doesn’t have to be the be all and end all, just like it isn’t in golf and tennis, if they are not going to straighten it out then, pardon the expression; screw ‘em,” Leonard said.

“They have been raised with Big Brother, the IOC, looking over them but now they know Big Brother is a fake.”

Currently the swimmers barely see a cent of FINA’s millions of dollars reaped from sponsorship and staging of international events. The Daily Telegraph has spoken with a number of top Australian swimmers who have expressed disappointment with FINA’s handling of doping cases.

“The instant the Games are over I am going to do everything I possibly can to organise the athletes, the five athletes from Australia, five athletes from the United States and the five athletes from the rest of the world, that actually matter in the sense that people want to put them on TV and I am going to try and get them together to form an organisation to do what they actually need to do,” Leonard said. “They don’t understand the power that they have.”

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Leonard said he had significant support from “the Australians”.

Leonard said the recent Russian and Chinese doping scandals had tainted the Olympic stage.

“We can create events far more significant than the Olympic Games with the 196th freestyler in the world in the 1500m competing for some country,” he said.

“I know we have significant support from Australians.”

“Without giving you names, I have reached out to a number of them, and I have a number of them more to reach out to. Everybody is supportive and wants to do it but they want to make sure everybody else is going to do it — which is perfectly understandable.”

When asked directly about Phelps, Leonard didn’t dismiss his people had been approached.

On the eve of his fifth Olympics Phelps and his coach Bob Bowman, who is friends with Leonard, have voiced their frustration with the lack of a solution to doping problems.

“We’ve had this problem for how many Olympics now? It seems every time it’s something that comes up … I think I can honestly say as well that in my career I don’t htink I”ve ever competed in a clean sport.”

Bowman said; “It’s very concerning to me that our governing bodies have dropped the ball in many ways on this. The system is broken and it has to be fixed.”

Leonard said he couldn’t comment on whether or not the Phelps’ camp had been approached.

“I not going to tell you who I talk to … you can make your own assumptions that I would be actually telling you this if I didn’t think it would work,” Leonard said.

“I don’t think the athletes have any idea that they hold all the power in this situation, with the IOC and FINA both, I don’t think they recognise that they need to set aside their competitive interests at this point and merge their efforts and basically say; guys you want us to swim, you gotta clean this up.”

Leonard believes that US doping Travis Tygart should be installed as WADA’s next president and a new doping technology called High Throughput testing should be employed.

“Most importantly we have to catch somebody and with that we use state of the art technology, High Through Put testing; which means you can look in a haystack and actually find a needle … without having to know the size, density and manufacturer of the needle.”

Originally published as Aussie swim stars to be targeted to start a ‘Super League’ in a bid to clean up the sport