Australia has refused to apologize after an Olympic swimmer sparked outrage by accusing China’s Sun Yang of being a “drug cheat”.
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The Rio swimming contest has become the new center of the global doping storm unleashed by a report for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which said the Russian Federation government organized the use of banned substances and manipulated doping tests.
Sun had earlier been accused of splashing water at Horton in an apparent attempt to get his attention, and Horton made his initial “drug cheat” reference when asked why he had ignored Sun.
After his comments became a top-trending hashtag topic on China’s Weibo this morning, Horton’s social media profile became a target.
Yang was quick to defend himself.
In an interview after his win he defended his comments, saying: “I used the words drug cheat because he tested positive”.
Yang fired shots back at Horton a day after the Australian’s gold medal-winning swim.
He said he hopes other athletes speak their minds on the topic. Horton was not shy to remind him of his offence, or to call his victory one “for the good guys”.
While straight-up personal tension certainly fueled Horton’s remarks, they also tap into more general and long-standing suspicion of doping in China’s swimming program.
“It is proof of a lack of good manners and upbringing”.
“We strongly demand an apology from this swimmer”, Xu added.
“We don’t know if it is Horton who is silly or it’s the Australian media that is evil, or perhaps Australia just has a different moral standard”, the newspaper said.
Horton dethroned the hulking Chinese swimmer as Olympic champion in the Saturday’s 400 metres freestyle after taking a dig at Sun’s doping record. “Maybe he won gold in the game but he will never win in life”, said one person on Twitter.
“Ur so disrespectful and RACIST to your competitor!” Sun has heart issue. “#ApologizeToSunYang” said another tweet.
Sun insisted at the press conference he was now clean and called for some respect. You are a loser!
After the race, officials from the Chinese Swimming Association rang their Australian counterparts, asking for Horton to make an apology to Sun Yang.
Sun served a three-month ban for testing positive to trimetazidine, a substance normally used to treat angina. I’ve proved I’m clean.
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“I don’t think it is a big statement because it is true, he has tested positive”, he said.
