Gold medalist Australia’s Mack Horton (C), silver medalist China’s Sun Yang (R) and bronze medalist Italy’s Gabriele Detti pose for photos after the awarding ceremony of men’s 400m freestyle swimming final at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 6, 2016.
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Swimming officials from Australia and China are jumping into the fray as a feud over doping between swimmers Mack Horton and Sun Yang keeps boiling over at the Rio Olympics.
The 20-year-old Australian had acknowledged after their final that there were tensions between him and Sun after a splashing incident during a recent practice.
Asked about it, Horton said Yang “splashed me to say hello, and I didn’t respond because I don’t have time for drug cheats”.
Efimova served a 16-month steroid ban in 2014 before testing positive for meldonium in March.
Yang said he used the drug to treat the heart condition angina.
“Total props to him for speaking out first, I admire that”, she said.
Johnson, who won four Olympic gold medals on the track and still holds the 400m world record, says athletes like Horton should do what they feel they need to do.
Horton needled Sun in a victory press conference, saying that he has “a problem with athletes who have tested positive and are still competing”. Sun made a move as though he wanted to congratulate Horton, but the victor looked the other way. Others laughed at his attempt to throw back his swim cap at the stands but Sun failed, so he instead threw it back at the pool.
The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said Horton had shown a lack of respect to Sun and “cynical smugness” after beating the Chinese swimmer in the men’s 400 metres freestyle final.
“Because I have been focusing on training and competition, I had only a hazy knowledge of the law, which led to my mistake.”
“His remarks of Sun is widely believed to be a part of his cultural heritage in that he was practically nursed race prejudice at his mother’s breasts [sic]”, the page read before it was re-edited.
Australia has been labelled as a “country at the fringes of civilisation” by a state-linked Chinese newspaper in the wake of the Mack Horton stoush with Sun Yang. “I’ve done whatever it takes to prove I’m a clean athlete”.
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Horton, whose mild manner and Harry Potter-style spectacles belie his toughness, said he knew that by calling Sun out hed put himself on the spot.
