Post Race PRESS CONFERENCE – as reported by SwimSwam / Loretta Race
During the first finals session of the 2015 FINA World Championships, we saw China’s Sun Yang clinch the gold medal in the men’s 400m freestyle. Sun got to the wall first in a time of 3:42.58, beating out strong showings by Britain’s James Guy and Canada’s Ryan Cochrane for silver and bronze.
Not all of the news post-race was exactly positive, however, as Sun’s doping cloud continues to follow him all the way to Kazan. Sun was banned for three months in the summer of 2014 due to a positive doping test at last year’s Chinese National Championships. Today, Sun let the media know exactly how he feels about that.
During a press conference after finals today, Sun Yang expressed:
“For the doping cases, I don’t know why the media paid so much attention to this. The world media seems to think that whenever the Chinese get a good result, we are doping. We are training and working hard, just like athletes in countries all over the world.”
Sun further diverted attention to other situations, saying,
“Athletes have been caught doping in other countries, like Australia, but not much is made of that and I think it’s disrespectful to China.”
Sun Yang may be referring to the recent case of Australia’s Kylie Palmer who pulled out of worlds due to a controversial test dating back to 2013.
Regarding his own case, Sun Yang mentions the word ‘mistake’, a word common to those in a defensive position when faced with the scientific proof of a positive doping test. “As athletes, we are working very hard and of course, there are times when get injured and sometimes we take things we don’t know about and it’s a genuine mistake,” Sun said. He continued, “I hope the media all over the world can have a fair attitude to Chinese athletes and treat us fairly.”
Swimming Video is courtesy of FINA.
While I do agree there might be bias against Chinese athletes such as the case of Ye Shiwen, Sun Yang case however is not since he is proven to be doping. What really caught media attention is the fact that he is only punish for light ban, which is just 3 months, a period he did not compete in any competition. FINA owe us an explanation why is it Sun Yang is only ban for 3 months and if the explanation is good enough, then maybe the media will not pay too much attention to his case and just move on.
Having said that, as long as there’s no evidence Sun Yang cheat or use drug this time, I still… Read more »