Despite Appearing On Provisionals, No Sun Yang In Hangzhou

2018 14TH FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Despite Chinese Olympic champion Sun Yang appearing on the initial Provisional Entry List for the 2018 FINA Short Course World Championships, enthusiasts around the world were skeptical that the 27-year-old would actually appear in Hangzhou. Even with the elite international competition taking place on his home nation soil, Sun rarely races short course, especially outside of domestic meets.

When we devised the men’s sprint freestyle preview, we specifically left Sun Yang out of the top 8, suspecting the freestyle ace would possibly wind up not competing. That has been confirmed by the fact Sun is missing from the just-published Entries Book (linked above), as well as the heat sheets for the 40om freestyle.

Despite holding China’s National Records across the 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle in long course, Sun Yang holds zero National Records in short course, reflecting his racing format preference. Swimrankings lists Sun as having a 400 SCM freestyle PB of 3:37.10 from way back in 2014, with a 1500 SCM freestyle swim from 2009.

Below, you can see Sun Yang appearing in the initial Provisional Entries list:

And then below Sun Yang‘s name is absent from the Entries Book as they stand today, December 9th:

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NEWTOSWIMSWAM
5 years ago

I believe this is his first SC meet, thus has no qualifying SCM times.

Peyton
5 years ago

He will swim the relays. He claimed in a video.

Brian
5 years ago

Makes sense. Sun yang has a fantastic swim but really weak walls

Old Man Chalmers
5 years ago

Is this meet being broadcasted anywhere aside from fina tv?

Swimming4silver
Reply to  Old Man Chalmers
5 years ago

Olympic Channel perhaps? at least in the US.

Pvdh
Reply to  Swimming4silver
5 years ago

For goodness sake….time to fire up another streaming free trial

Swimming4silver
Reply to  Pvdh
5 years ago

i’ll pass this year.. starting 3 am in the west coast..for next years worlds, ill do it.. but not for SC, sorry.

Hswimmer
Reply to  Swimming4silver
5 years ago

I’m sure they will post videos on YouTube like every year

About Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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