Although it appears World Record holder Sun Yang was ruled out of racing at this year’s Olympic Games, the 32-year-old Chinese swimmer refuses to give up hope.
According to a report in Code Sports, Sun is still training every day and remains registered in his nation’s drug-testing pool.
This is even though six-time Olympic medalist Sun is currently serving a four-year suspension that is set to expire in May 2024. Chinese Nationals, which serves as one of the Olympic-qualifying competitions per the qualification criteria, are scheduled for April 2024, rendering Sun out of that meet.
As we reported last December, per China’s Olympic selection criteria, swimmers will be ranked by the fastest times performed at the following competitions:
- Fukuoka & Doha World Championships Finals
- Chinese Nationals, scheduled for April 2024
Additionally, the criteria specified that athletes who have been banned for more than one year for doping violations will be disqualified from selection. (NBC Sports)
However, as with most qualification policies around the world, the Chinese Swimming Federation reserves the right to discretionarily select athletes of its choosing. Sun would need to clock a World Aquatics Olympic Qualifying Time by the deadline of June 23rd for this to happen.
This may be in the back of Sun’s mind, fueling his continuation of training against all odds.
Sun is awesome. He’s lot cleaner than most European swimmer.
Sun does whatever he wants to and that’s why people all over the world love him.
Mark has a lane opening :). It would be fun to see him training with Ahmed. My supposition is that Hafnaoui will be on fire this next six months and hope his visa status is cleared. It hasn’t been good for his concentration. I can fix Sun’s ruddering ankles. If he’s clean, maybe his personality would be better too. I would hope he’s matured into a fair sporting, gracious adult. It will be easier to trust how clean he is if he were training with us. Just a thought. Mark’s trained Russians before too and has a good relationship with Salnikov. There is a saying that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It would be good to… Read more »
The most challenging part of all of this isn’t his participation, but making us all think “who is actually doping?”. There are clearly athletes that have managed to stay under the radar.
He should go for enhanced games
I just wanna see what he can rip, I am calling 3:43 this spring and or summer
But if he’s doping it won’t matter!
It’s very obvious he never stopped training and the Chinese government has had him training this whole time. They will clear him under the guise of it being a non planned decision and most people will believe it naively.
Let him swim.
Cheater should be banned for life
i remember as a kid being in awe of sun after london 2012. i still believe he was he was clean then and therefore one of the greatest freestylers ever. however, everything after london is so atrocious, of course mainly the vial smashing, and at some point you must pay the price for that. it’s sad for swimming, but i think this should be put to bed
You believe he started doping and got worse?
Can’t speak for OP but if he hit a wall or started regressing (burnout, etc) that could have pushed him to turn to doping