The 2012-2014 Medalists in the Men’s Freestyles if Dopers Were Removed

The sport of swimming has been up in arms on the topic of doping for some time now, which seems as though it’s on the rise as the 2016 Rio Olympics approach. There have been numerous cases coming out of countries such as Brazil and Russia.

Most recently, some of the top athletes in our sport have received doping bans out of competition, and in competition, that have suspended them from competing for a certain period of time. The most recent case is Korea’s Park Tae Hwan.

With some of the best athletes in our sport being caught with substances in their system, it begs the question: what would our sport look like if it was completely clean? At Swimswam we are in high support of clean sport.

We’ve put together an analysis of what the sport would’ve looked like from 2012-2014 if all athletes who have had a doping ban were not in the picture. The point is not to take credit away from any of the athletes who have been removed from this list, or to point fingers. Each doping case and suspension is unique, and we at Swimswam are not deciding whether or not there was ill-intent in the taking of an illegal substance.

2012 Olympic Games

The freestyle events were the most effected by swimmers who had received or were to receive doping bans in the near future. Every single freestyle event besides the 100m freestyle had somebody in the top three whose future or past displayed an illegal substance in their system.

The top three in all the remaining events all had swimmers who never had, or never would up until the time of this article, be suspended for doping. As for the relays, the only relay to have any change in the top three was the 4x200m freestyle relay where China was removed due to Sun Yang’s positive test in 2014.

Below are the ‘new’ top three after removing any swimmer with a past or future that involved doping.

50m Freestyle 

• Florent Manaudou
• Cullen Jones
• Cesar Cielo
• Bruno Fratus

200m Freestyle

• Yannick Agnel
• Sun Yang/ Park Tea Hwan (tie)
• Ryan Lochte
• Paul Biedermann

400m Freestyle

• Sun Yang
• Park Tae-Hwan
• Peter Vanderkaay
• Hao Yun
• Conor Dwyer

1500m Freestyle

• Sun Yang
• Ryan Cochrane
• Ous Mellouli
• Park Tae-Hwan
• Gregorio Paltrinieri
• Connor Jaeger

4x200m Freestyle Relay

• USA
• France
• China
• Germany

2013 World Championships

Much like in 2012, the freestyle events saw the brunt of the change. The 100m and 200m freestyles were the only two free events where no swimmer with a past or future of doping was a top three finisher.

This time however, there was one more event added. The 50m fly saw the removal of a few swimmers with the likes of Cesar Cielo and Frederick Bousquet removed from the top three as well. The only relay that was effected was again the 4x200m freestyle relay with the removal of China, again due to Sun Yang’s 2014 suspension.

Below are the edited results.

50m Freestyle

• Cesar Cielo
• Vlad Morozov
• Georgia Bovell
• Nathan Adrian

400m Freestyle

• Sun Yang
• Kosuke Hagino
• Connor Jaeger
• Ryan Cochrane

800m Freestyle

• Sun Yang
• Michael McBroom
• Ryan Cochrane
• Connor Jaeger

1500m Freestyle

• Sun Yang
• Ryan Cochrane
• Gregorio Paltrinieri
• Connor Jaeger

50m Butterfly

• Cesar Cielo
• Eugene Godsoe
• Frederick Bousquet
• Nicholas Santos
• Andriy Hovorov
• Yauhen Tsurkin/ Steffen Deibler

4x200m Freestyle Relay

• USA
• Russia
• China
• France

2014 World Rankings

The 2013-2014 season wasn’t one that could show the removal of gold medals. This is the ‘off’ year in swimming that happens once every four years where there’s no World Championships or Olympic Games. There are plenty of high-level competitions however, such as the Commonwealth Games, European Championships, Asian Games, and Pan Pacific Championships.

Instead of looking at one meet, we looked at the overall world results to see how they were effected. Once again there was a similar trend in showing completely different results for the freestyle events.

Below are the changed results. Note: relays were not included.

50m Freestyle

• Florent Manaudou
• Cesar Cielo
• Bruno Fratus
• Vlad Morozov

100m Freestyle

• James Magnussen
• Cameron McEvoy
• Zetao Ning
• Florent Manaudou

200m Freestyle

• Thomas Fraser-Holmes
• Kosuke Hagino
• Park Tae Hwan
• Sun Yang
• Cameron McEvoy

400m Freestyle

• Park Tae Hwan
• Sun Yang
• Ryan Cochrane
• David McKeon
• Kosuke Hagino

50m Fly

• Andrii Govorov
• Cesar Cielo
• Benjamin Proud
• Florent Manaudou

TRENDS

Looking at this data there is one very obvious trend, and that is it seems the distance freestyle events are the ones that are subject to the most doping. In fact, 2014 was the first time since the 2007 World Championships that the top three had never or would never receive a doping ban.

This is a very strange concept in the sport considering the change. Usually, doping would be found in the sprinting events, but it seems as though distance is now taking the brunt of it.

Prior to 2008, no Olympic Champion since Rick DeMont had ever had a doping violation and won the 1500m freestyle. DeMont didn’t exactly win the 1500, but he was headed into the final as the top seed after winning the 400m freestyle earlier at the 1972 Olympic Games.

He was removed from the Olympic Games and disqualified due to a doping violation from a trace amount of a banned substance found in his inhaler. The medical staff looking after the athlete’s medication over-looked the substances in his inhaler, and for this DeMont was disqualified.

(NOTE: The USOC, in 2001, admitted it had mishandled DeMont’s medical information at the 1972 Olympics. The USOC appealed to the IOC to reinstate DeMont’s Olympic medal. As of today,  the IOC has still not overturned their ruling.)

Since DeMont’s 1972 case, however, the sport has been very clean in distance events. Brian Goodell won the 1500 in 1976, clean. Valdimir Salnikov won in 1980, and has denied numerous times using performance enhancing drugs. Mike O’Brien won in 1984 and never had a doping violation. Kieren Perkins took over the 1500 followed by Grant Hackett and they were both clean.

In 2008 however, Ous Mellouli won the 1500 in Beijing and was the first 1500 Olympic Champion to have ever been involved in a doping scandal (if you don’t count DeMont since technically he never did win a 1500).

Since then, every year has been dominated by a swimmer who has been involved in a doping scandal, with the exception of 2010 which was a non-Olympic, non-Worlds year in swimming. 2009 Worlds went to Mellouli.  2011 went to Sun Yang as did 2012 and 2013.

2014 again, an off-year, went to Gregorio Paltrinieri.

Now with the 2015 World Championships coming up, the question arrises if the trend will continue or break. The top three last year were Paltrinieri, Cochrane, and Horton. Sun Yang will likely swim the 1500 in Kazan, Russia. Park Tae Hwan is currently involved in a suspension and will not be competing. It’s looking like the trend could be broken, as long as Yang is kept out of the top three this summer.