The AOC has defended Australian gold medal victor Mack Horton’s right to call his 400m freestyle rival, China’s Sun Yang, a “drug cheat“.
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Aussie Horton dethroned China’s Sun Yang to win the men’s 400m freestyle and then Campbell, the individual world record-holder, anchored Australia to 4x100m freestyle gold in 3min 30.65sec, the fastest time in history.
The Chinese served a three month suspension in 2014 when he tested positive to a banned substance.
Another said: “You are a loser for a lifetime because of your disrespect and the lose [sic] of the Olympic Spirit and global reputation”.
Other menacing comments levelled at Horton included “Loser”, “Disgusting”, “B****’, and ‘Hate you”.
Horton refused to back down from his comments and told reporters he had no regrets about calling out Yang.
“I don’t think I need to explain myself any further”, he said.
Canada’s Ryan Cochrane said: “For an athlete that’s clean it’s really frustrating”.
“The last 50 meters I was thinking about what I said and what would happen if he gets me here”, said Horton, who beat Sun by just 13-hundredths of a second. “Hopefully others will follow”.
In the AAP report, Horton said Sun had splashed water at him during training.
“Sun Yang is the man who is accused of attacking a female swimmer at the world titles in August past year and accused of trying to kick and elbow a female swimmer and having a number of problems with other swimmers, including the threat of violence”. “He wasn’t happy about that so he kept splashing me, and I just go in and did my thing”.
Another Twitter user, Mark Horton, a self-described Liverpool Football Club fan but no relation to the Australian swimmer, was forced to post a clarification after being mistaken for “the Australian swimmer who said something about a Chinese swimmer”. “The area was not a target”, said Games spokesman Mario Andrada.
Horton won his first Olympic gold medal with a time of 3 minutes, 41.55 seconds Saturday night before the Australian women capped the first night of swimming with a world-record victory in the 4×100 freestyle relay.
Standing behind their swimmer, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) issued a statement defending the 20-year-old. “Well done mate!” Thorpe tweeted.
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American swimming star Michael Phelps joins the fray in Rio Sunday hoping to reverse the trend after triumphant Australia dominated the first day’s action in the Olympic pool.
