Chinese swimmer Sun Yang‘s withdrawal from the final of the men’s 1500 free on Sunday is being credited due to a heart condition, FINA has told the media.
The world’s governing body for swimming has scheduled a press conference for the conclusion of the session, where they are expected to elaborate, but several news outlets, including The Australian’s Nicole Jeffrey, say that Sun experienced problems with his heart during warmups for finals, and that because there was not enough time for a full medical evaluation, he withdrew from the final.
Sun’s heart condition has been reported before. The medicine that he was suspended for taking in 2014 is used to treat heart conditions, which the federation says was its purpose (rather than for performance enhancement).
Sun is the World Record holder in the event and was the 3rd seed coming into the event final. He was also the two-time defending World Champion, and was the 2012 Olympic Champion, in the event as well.
In his absence, Gregorio Paltrinieri broke the Italian Record to win gold in 14:39.67. He was four seconds faster than Sun in the preliminaries.
he won the golds in the 200 and 400 metre freestyle in 17th FINA world championships. I think it is better for him to have a rest and fully prepare for 2020 Tokyo Olympic.
Maybe he was affraid of the other competitors.!!!
Are you serious John? If he dared to swim in 200m which is not his favorite distance, why would he be afraid of swimming 1500m which he feels most comfortable with? Have you ever heard of an elite swimmer at this level who has done this? This kind of comment only makes you look very childish and ignorant, and reflects what kind of person you are!
It is entirely possible that SY has heart problems. I know many retired elite swimmers that had heart issues during swimming and after retiring as well, none of them used PEDs.
Being a distance swimmer that pushes himself to train and perform at such a high level , Sun could have exacerbated something small into something bigger.
Whatever is going on with him, he is great to watch and I missed seeing him in the 1500 today. I wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see him in Rio.
It sure would have been nice if the Chinese gave notice that Sun was not going to swim so that the alternate was ready to go. Having an open lane in a World Championship final sucks.
Too bad all this happened. It wasn’t a sure thing that Sun was capable of swimming a 14:39 right now. Paltrinieri might’ve take this thing with Sun in the race.
This may be similar to what Rebecca Soni experienced prior to the 2008 Olympics, until she got a procedure which caused her to rocket into the international scene and win 3 medals at the Olympics. If this is the case, if Sun gets the procedure done, he will be so much better than he already is.
2006 & a 2 23.5 within a few months . Soni would have been perfectly able to take heart drugs to assist her recovery & her training .
It would help if all the heart affected swimmers came forward to state which drugs they were on – until then we have no idea .
Have they had the press conference yet?
But he didn’t actually go to the hospital right? Because then how was he back in time for his swimmer of the meet award and the press conf. ..