Swimming needs a fresh start

Most Australians’ favourite sporting memories include at least one triumph in an Olympic pool. Shane Gould in Munich in 1972, Kieren Perkins winning the 1500m freestyle gold in lane eight at Atlanta in 1996, the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team beating Team USA in Sydney in 2000 and our women winning the same event in London and Rio spring to mind. Swimming champions have long been afforded star billing in our national pantheon, which is why sports fans recognise that the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision to ban Chinese cheat Sun Yang for eight years is just and courageous. It offers the chance of a much needed fresh start in a sport that has been overseen for too long by the dead hand of FINA, its peak administrative body. In reaching its judgment, the court overturned FINA’s astonishing decision last year when it cleared Sun of all wrongdoing, despite the destruction of his drug-testing results in September 2018. In a clash with drug testers, a security guard from Sun’s entourage reportedly used a hammer to destroy a container with a vial of the swimmer’s blood sample. Sun tested positive to a banned stimulant during China’s 2014 championships. He was suspended for three months.

Olympic gold medallist Cate Campbell said on Monday that tough questions need to be asked of FINA. They do. The organisation then needs a clean-out and an overhaul. To the detriment of the sport, its soft pedalling on doping stretches back at least two generations. Wayne Smith, who has covered swimming since the early 1970s — the era of Steve Holland and Tracey Wickham — recounted on Monday how FINA turned a blind eye to the systemic cheating of the East Germans in the 70s and 80s. Their doping program, which left athletes ill and infertile, was exposed after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It was followed by similar official cheating by the Chinese. China cleaned up its act, but rogue cheats such as Sun persisted.

Of the many frustrated Australian, US and other athletes who urged FINA to stamp out cheating, none has been more effective than freestyle Olympic gold medallist Mack Horton, who labelled Sun a drug cheat at Rio in 2016. When Horton swam second to Sun in the 400m freestyle at the world championships in South Korea last year, he knew what he was expected to do. That, as Smith wrote, was to “accept his silver medal with a smile, shake hands with his fellow medallists, smile for the cameras and then disappear”. But Horton could not do it. He refused to share the podium with Sun.

FINA’s response illustrates why its leadership should go. It formally cautioned Swimming Australia. FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu, who had hugged Sun Yang as he stepped off the podium in Rio in 2016, accused Horton of jealousy. Mr Marculescu, 78, is a former Romanian water polo player who has held office in Lausanne, Switzerland, since 1986. FINA president Julio Maglione, the president of the Uruguayan Olympic Committee, is 84. Sports officials who enjoy the perks of international travel and the best seats at competitions need to be responsible and uphold rigorous standards. FINA’s hierarchy needs fresh blood and expertise, drawn from nations with a strong interest in swimming and fair play.

Part of the problem is that under current rules the US and Australia, which rank first and second in Olympic swimming medals, and other competitive swimming nations have no more say in running the sport than landlubber members. The structure needs updating. Athletes in North American and Europe are already voting with their feet, joining a rival swimming competition launched last year, the International Swimming League. As Smith wrote, this is the moment for reform. The Court of Arbitration’s ban is a major embarrassment for FINA and a wake-up call that something is deeply wrong in one of the Olympics’ main attractions, for which tickets sell faster than any other sport. Australia, which has always stood firm against cheating, is well placed to help lead reform. Plenty of our ex-Olympians such as Perkins and Madame Butterfly, Susie O’Neill, would be ideal board members.