Sun Yang and China got all the respect they deserve from Mack Horton at World Champs

Sun Yang said Mack Horton disrespected China but after other athletes joined the protest, China and FINA got all the respect they deserved.

COMMENT

One of the most uncomfortable truths about Chinese swim star Sun Yang is that he may well be innocent of doping, this time.

The more confronting truth though, the incontrovertible one, is that Sun was, is and always will be a doper. His failed 2014 test, however you look at it or the medical excuses for taking trimetazidine — used to treat his heart palpitations, but banned by WADA — sees to that.

At the time CHINADA (Chinese Anti-Doping Authority) did not report the failed test or the subsequent ban until after it had been served by Sun.

Now in 2019, some would argue that Sun — ostracised by rivals Mack Horton and Duncan Scott who have ignited the firestorm against Sun with podium protests at the World Championships in Gwangju — might in this instance deserve the benefit of the doubt.

China's Sun Yang, silver medallist Japan's Katsuhiro Matsumoto (R) and tie bronze medallist Russia's Martin Malyutin (L) pose as tie bronze medallist Britain's Duncan Scott walks off.

Innocent until proven guilty is the accepted premise, but when the evidence is that you had someone smash vials of your own blood after a dispute with drug testing agents, it’s not a good look.

Neither is the fact you have been busted once before.

Of course the case is more nuanced than that and Sun had his reasons for blowing up and ordering the samples destroyed, including dodgy paperwork, unaccredited agents and one of those agents filming the whole thing, arguably illegally.

Should he have had the blood vials destroyed? Absolutely not. Should he have trusted the doping agents? Probably also not.

It’s all at the heart of why the current inquiry into Sun, set to be resolved at a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing in September, where WADA are seeking to overturn the FINA ruling that Sun is free to swim on is set to be as explosive as the back end of one of his race swims.

Sun’s other problem is not having the trust of other swimmers — and like it or not China’s appalling record when it comes to doping, particularly in swimming, in that sense he in a way is a victim of history.

After Horton protested and was howled down as a sore loser by the Chinese media Sun said: “Disrespecting me was OK, but disrespecting China was unfortunate.”

China, in a swimming and sporting sense got exactly the level of respect it deserves.

Chinese swimmer Wu YanYan was eventually busted for doping after multiple world records.

The last time a Chinese swimmer was this good on the international scene was in the 1990s as YanYan Wu took all before her, winning gold medals and setting records seemingly at will.

Images of her mesomorphic physique and massive shoulders will forever be etched in the minds of swimming fans, as will the scenes of her teammate Yuan Yuan being caught importing human growth hormone into Sydney, Australia ahead of the 1998 World titles in Perth.

Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan escorted by an Australian customs officer and a policeman after being caught smuggling illicit substances in 1998.

Yuan was kicked out of swimming on the spot — she had enough drugs for the entire women’s squad. It took two more years for Wu to be busted, testing positive for a steroid and getting kicked out of swimming for life.

It took over a decade for her name to be removed from the record books when Australia’s Stephanie Rice finally broke her 200m IM world record.

There have been others too, backstroker Ouyang Kunpeng, 2008 Olympian and World Championship relay star Li Zhesi and Chen Xinyi, who was busted at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

And on top of all that came revelations in 2017 from former Xue Yinxian, a 79-year-old doctor, claimed more than 10,000 athletes in different sports were involved in a state-backed doping program.

It’s easy to see why Sun is not being given the benefit of the doubt and the likes of Horton and Scott have protested the way they have.

Mack Horton refusing to stand with Sun Yang.

Though, their powerful protests which will no doubt go down in sporting lore might be all for naught come September.

Sadly that is the state of swimming these days and as The Australian sports editor Wally Mason, alluded to, FINA is being run by Uruguayan Julio Maglione, 83, who seems to be turning a deaf ear to all the protests and suggesting the athletes need to calm down by sending them letters.

Receiving letters for protesting a drug cheat would have to be as enraging to other swimmers as Sun’s attitude towards them.

His behaviour towards Scott on the dais, shouting at him before again confronting him in an aggressive manner and saying “you lose, I win!” just shows he is as out of touch as swimming authorities.

His celebration in the pool after Danis Rapsys was disqualified for movement on the blocks and lost his first world title on a technicality was just as bad, and elicited nothing but condemnation from the jeering and raucous crowd.

Laughing at someone else’s misery is generally not considered a great personality trait.

His own entitled attitude seemingly towards everyone else on the pool deck makes it all worse and hard for him to find any sympathy in the swimming community — he has in the past been accused of disrupting other swimmers. It was at its worst in 2015, when Brazilian coach Alberto Pinto da Silva accused Sun of assaulting female swimmer Larissa Oliveira as the pair warmed up during the world championships.

“He was warming up and he pulled the Brazilian girl’s foot, Pinto da Silva said in a report submitted to world swimming body FINA.

“He ran her over. She got angry and had it out with him. He tried to elbow her and kick her. So then the Brazilian coaches went to speak to him. He said she was bothering him and one of the coaches said that the pool wasn’t just his. Everyone was at the side of the pool, and they were all swearing at each other.”

He looked close to getting physical with Scott in Gwangju too — and therein, lies the problem FINA it seems don't want to punish a convicted drug cheat.

They refuse to punish any element of Sun’s bad behaviour, yet they want to warn off and punish those that stand against him.

The booing, jeering and the controversy will only get louder until they find their minerals and sanction Sun or WADA somehow win at the CAS, either way, they need to be stronger and so do the historically weak Chinese swimming authorities.

CHINA’S HISTORY OF DOPING IN SWIMMING

• Chen Xinyi at the 2016 Summer Olympics tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide, a banned substance

• Sun Yang tested positive in 2014 for trimetazidine, a banned stimulant

• Li Zhesi in June 2012, tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin

• Ouyang Kunpeng in May 2008 banned for life for failed drug test

• YanYan Wu in May 2000 tested positive to steroids

• Yuan Yuan, 1998 Perth, caught by Australian Customs with Human Growth Hormone.