Sun Yang Reports Cyberbullying to Police in Hangzhou

Three-time Chinese Olympic Champion Sun Yang has reportedly filed a police report after being a target of a large-scale cyberbullying attack.

In a report published by the Hong Kong Free Press, his team said there was false information, such as “maliciously fabricated rumors” that began circulating online, which they called organized and planned cyberbullying. His team did not specify which false information was spread about the 34-year-old Sun.

Sun reported the cyberbullying to the police in Hangzhou, his legal team stated that they have “secured evidence and will pursue civil, administrative, and even criminal liability according to the law.”

Chinese authorities have been working to handle what they call “toxic fandom” in reference to the public’s treatment of its top athletes.

The tall-in-stature Sun, standing about six feet, seven inches tall, has long been a controversial athlete in the world of swimming. Having notably been handed an eight-year ban over an out-of-competition tampering of the doping control process. He was also given a three-month ban in 2014 for a positive test at the Chinese Nationals.

This situation, in particular, also comes with a pinch of irony. In what was once one of the sport’s most headline-grabbing rivalries, Australian Olympian Mack Horton had been a strong advocate for clean racing and publicly spoke about his dislike of Sun. That caused tensions to rise since the 2016 Rio Olympics, where Sun supporters began harassing Horton’s family in Australia, both in person and online. His family also reportedly received nine million messages within 24 hours of Horton’s comments in Rio about Sun being a “drug cheat”, none of which were positive.

In 2019, at the World Championships in Gwangju, Sun and Horton had to be separated in the warm-up pool, with Horton later refusing to share the podium with Sun in the 400 free.