Two-time Turkish Olympian Viktoria Gunes has been suspended two years by World Aquatics for “whereabouts failures” from last February, suggesting she did not make herself available for random drug testing.
Gunes is ineligible until May 23rd, 2026, and her results are disqualified since February 19, 2023. The 26-year-old native of Ukraine hasn’t raced since 2022 Islamic Solidarity Games. Her punishment is slightly more severe than the 18-month ban that has seemingly become the norm for whereabouts failures.
Related:
- Canadian Olympian Ruslan Gaziev Suspended 18 Months for Whereabouts Failures
- Santo Condorelli Given 18-Month Ban for Whereabouts Failures
Gunes still owns the nine-year-old world junior record in the 200 breaststroke at 2:19.64, which was only .53 seconds off the senior world record at the time in 2015. She also broke the world junior record in the 200 IM (2:11.03) at the 2015 World Junior Championships while sweeping all three breaststroke distances in Singapore.
Gunes went on to represent Turkey at the Rio Olympics in 2016, placing 9th in 200 breast, 14th in 100 breast, and 18th in 400 IM. After capturing a team title during the inaugural International Swimming League (ISL) season in 2019, she rode that momentum to a second Olympic appearance at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2021 edition, where she placed 13th in the 4×200 free relay and 22nd in the 200 IM.
After the Tokyo Olympics, Gunes resurfaced in 2022 with the the pro group at Mission Viejo training under head coach Jeff Julian. She skipped the 2022 World Championships in favor of the Mediterranean Games, where she won the 200 breast in 2:26.48 — which would have placed 14th at Worlds that year.
Gunes began her international career representing Ukraine at the 2013 World Junior Championships, where she won gold in the 200 breast, silver in the 50 breast, and bronze in the 100 breast. She angered Russian swimmers in 2022 when she posted a photo standing on a Russian flag about a month after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to her Instagram, Gunes appears to be working now as a model based out of Los Angeles.
With Gunes ineligible, Turkey is sending four swimmers to the Paris Olympics later this month: Berke Saka (men’s 100 back, 200 IM), fellow world junior record holder Kuzey Tuncelli (men’s 800 free, 1500 free, 10k open water), Emir Batur Albayrak (men’s 1500 free, 10k open water), Berkay Omer Ogretir (men’s 100 breast), and the women’s 4×200 free relay team of Ela Naz Ozdemir, Gizem Guvenc, Ecem Donmez, and Zehra Bilgin.
It was quite clear after Tokyo that she moved to LA to model.
Honestly, long live Viktoria Gunes. In 2015, winning times at huge meets for the 200 breast were very slow (2:21 won in Kazan 2015), then this girl just came out of nowhere at Junior Worlds (of all meets) and pops a 2:19. It was just a very refreshing swim to see. Hopefully she has a great life ahead of her; but girl: update your retirement status, or follow the rules if you don’t!
PS. NOT saying Junior Worlds is a slow meet; but that year just had a lot of generally very fast swimming. So, we thought it was all over and done with by the time J Worlds rolled around, then this girl from Turkey pops a 2:19… Read more »
To find out what you’ve done? Or would you rather hide?
Frankly, I’m uninformed.
I never even heard of this swimmer.
You maybe know her under the name of Solntseva. She changed name when her family moved from Ukarine to Turkiye
She is responsible for the 2nd-most read article in SwimSwam history…
https://staging.swimswam.com/russian-swimmers-lash-out-after-viktoria-gunes-posts-provocative-photo-on-ig/
Wow, that’s a crazy stat… and must have one of the lower view-to-comment ratios of any article on this site
Russian bots?
What is the first most read?
I believe this one: https://staging.swimswam.com/wont-watching-phelps-new-armour-ad/
With his reaction being 3rd. I think that’s right but I might have those backward: https://staging.swimswam.com/michael-phelps-cries-seeing-under-armour-video-for-the-first-time/
She retired and does modelling stints in LA. Her last meet was the Islamic Games in Konya. Wihing her all the best.
I’m pretty sure she’s simply retired
I think this is the case – that she is done with swimming.
So stupid whereabouts failures shouldn’t be a thing. There shouldn’t be random tests like this. They should text/call/email the athlete saying they will be tested within the next 24h and to make sure they update the testing window. If they miss that sure give them a strike but they can show up any day with the window with no notice. People have lives.
knowledge of the testing day would defeat the purpose of out-of-competition testing, since they were implemented to catch athletes at random periods. this is in contrast to in-competition testing, where the athlete knows the day they’ll be tested.
the system is lenient enough as is, since athletes are only banned if they miss 3 tests in 1 year.
athletes are the ones who set the time and location of the test, so it’s absolutely fair to make them culpable for any whereabouts failing.
“people have lives” is not a valid excuse, especially when they miss 3 tests in a year. They only need to set aside 1 hour per day, which most athletes align with their training sessions. elite… Read more »
I’ve said it before… it’s really not that hard to comply. You give one hour a day when you have to be where you say you’re going to be. Professional athletes have regular commitments (training) – it’s arguably easier for them to meet this requirement than it would be for anyone else. If there’s a change of plan, it’s easy to update your whereabouts so you don’t get a strike. There’s really no excuse – and there’s definitely no legitimate excuse for 3 strikes.
That said it doesn’t seem that relevant for a swimmer who’s retired.
Don’t sound so ignorant. Giving her a head’s up is like telling a bank you’re going to rob them the next day. The rules are in place. She knows the rules. If she can’t abide by them then that’s on her. People have lives and she made the choice on hers.
Clearly none of you have been randomly tested before. A lot of athletes miss test because they get targeted on vacation, travel days and other strange times. Most performance enhancing drugs stay in your system for longer than 24h so the heads up wouldn’t make a difference. They hand out bans for masking agents as well. Even a few hours notice would make a huge difference in making sure athletes are there to take the test.
Seems like a polarizing gal lol