Horton Received 500,000 Angry Comments on One Instagram Post

The feud between distance freestylers Australian Mack Horton and Sun Yang of China garnered a lot of attention during the first week in Rio the evidence of that can be found on Horton’s Twitter and Instagram accounts. It has been reported by the Daily Mail that Horton received half a million angry comments on one of his Instagram posts.

Horton said that the response affected his social media accounts, but not his focus or performance in Rio, “It affected my social media more than it affected me. I had 500,000 comments on one of my Instagram photos and it was just all hate from Chinese people,” Horton told Channel 7.

“I was aware of it, but I didn’t let it distract me during the week.”

The reaction of the Chinese public came after Horton called Sun, who is one of the most popular athletes in China, a drug cheat referring to a positive drug test in 2014. To add insult to injury Horton went on to defeat the Olympic champion in the 400 freestyle by 13 one-hundredths of a second. A defeat that Sun did not handle well.

 

Below are a few examples of tweets that Horton has received.

 

 

 

 

In an interview on SEN Breakfast Horton said he hoped that the reaction would help clean up the sport, “(I was) not shocked (by the reaction), I think it was actually a good thing, trying to promote clean sport,” said Horton.

“If this is the reaction and it gets clean sport out in the air amongst athletes, then that’s a good thing.”

“I don’t think it was a distraction I just focused back in on the processes that were required to get on with the week.”

Before Rio the only time the two had faced off against each other at a major international competition was in the 800 freestyle at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan. Sun took the event in a time of 7:39.96 while Horton finished third in a time of 7:44.02.

The feud between the two began when Sun was accused of trying to disrupt one of Horton’s training sessions leading up to the swimming events in Rio began.

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James Guy
8 years ago

Haha lol

alano dalman talampas
8 years ago

500,000 angry comments from the Chinese on Horton’s true comment on Sun? Do this even represent a fraction of a drop in a bucket of 1.4 billion Chinese? Well, we all know how the Chinese are. Ho-hum.

nvtncs
8 years ago

500,000 angry comments means that Horton had better watch his mouth in Tokyo in 2020.
Beijing is only a hop, skip and jump away.

whodunnit
8 years ago

So you are saying Horton heard a Hu?

Swimmer26
8 years ago

HAHAHAHAHA I’m laughing so hard at the one asking why he didn’t drown that’s hilarious

leogary
8 years ago

any effort to promote fair play should be appreciated.

bobo gigi
8 years ago

About “social” media (I don’t see what is social, it’s rather anti social in my opinion but that’s another debate), I don’t understand how these athletes can lose so much time and mental energy by writing and reading comments on their facebook, twitter or instagram accounts.
Shut down these toys and focus on your swimming and the normal life Mr Horton. At the very least disable the comments.

anonymoose
Reply to  bobo gigi
8 years ago

im glad your back bobo 🙂

Sunny
8 years ago

That Harry Potter is the cheat, playing mind games by bring up something that happens two years ago.

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Jeff Grace

Jeff is a 500 hour registered yoga teacher who holds diplomas in Coaching (Douglas College) and High Performance Coaching (National Coaching Institute - Calgary). He has a background of over 20 years in the coaching profession, where he has used a unique and proven teaching methodology to help many achieve their …

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