‘I won’t tolerate disrespect’: Sun Yang fires back at podium protesters

China’s Sun Yang has fired back at podium protesters, insisting he is doing them all a favour.

China’s Sun Yang says the protests of other swimmers ‘mean nothing to me’.

China’s Sun Yang believes that, far from being the pin-up boy for drug cheats in sport, he is actually standing up for swimmers around the world, protecting them from bogus drug-testers.

Sun was painted in an entirely different light by Australia’s Mack Horton and Briton’s Duncan Scott, who staged dramatic podium protests at this week’s world swimming championships in Gwangju to highlight the fact that FINA should not have allowed him to swim here while he is facing a Court of Arbitration tribunal in September.

But in his one interview before leaving South Korea, Sun insisted he should not have to put up with these kinds of protests because, in his eyes, he is one of the good guys.

“I think FINA has already made a statement to say that I didn’t break any rules and I obeyed all the rules,” Sun told Chinese journalists.

“What I did is to defend the rights of all athletes because if someone is not qualified to take blood, who knows what can happen? So what I did was to defend the rights of every athlete. What I say happened is proven and nothing I’ve said is fake. I have defended myself and I won’t tolerate any disrespect from others athletes.”

Silver medallist Australia's Mack Horton, left, refused to stand on the podium with gold medallist Sun Yang last week.

Every man, they say, is the hero of his own story and Sun, who won the 200-400m freestyle double in Gwangju, believes he is standing up for athletes all around the world.

When he became suspicious of independent drug testers who turned up at the door of his Hangzhou villa late at night last September, he began to regret giving them a blood sample, insisting they were not properly accredited.

Eventually members of his entourage destroyed the samples with a hammer. FINA held a hearing that ended up agreeing with Sun that the testers had failed to produce adequate identification or follow correct procedures. In turn, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed that decision to the CAS.

The trouble was that Sun was allowed to compete at the world titles, which Horton and Scott and a host of other elite swimmers believe was essentially wrong. And they principally blame FINA for failing to give clean athletes any support.

“I shouldn’t have to put up with these kinds of insults. But I have a big heart. There are millions of athletes in this world and if a few want to hurt insults, I can take it.

“It’s pointless arguing with them. It means nothing to me. FINA made it clear I didn’t commit any doping violation. What I am doing is protecting the rights and interests of every athlete.”