China’s Sun Yang was absent from the final of the men’s 1500 freestyle, leaving a big hole in the middle of the pool in Sunday’s event final.
While we have been unable to contact anyone in Sun’s camp to confirm the nature of his withdrawal, we have confirmed with Brazilian sources that Sun Yang was involved in a physical altercation with a Brazilian female swimmer in the warmup pool. The Brazilian team reported Sun to FINA.
Additionally, Sun was seen by several other swimmers from other federations that we’ve spoken to exchanging heated words with a Brazilian coach after the incident.
Sun was seen in the warmup pool before the finals sessions. Updates below include the official reasons being given by FINA for the withdrawal.
Update: The BBC is reporting that the Chinese Federation has given a “heart problem during warmups” as the official reason for Sun’s withdrawal from the 1500 free final. Nicole Jeffery from The Australian says that a FINA official has said the same thing, and that there “wasn’t time for a full medical checkup,” so he withdrew. FINA says that they will hold a press conference regarding Sun’s withdrawal after the session.
Update #2: The Brazilian team’s head coach Albertinho has confirmed the altercation in an interview for Brazilian television, according to Brazilian outlet Yes Swim. He says that the Chinese coaches came to apologize afterward, and that he doesn’t believe it was the reason for Sun’s withdrawal from the final. The altercation happened during the preliminary session, but was not with a swimmer who participated in the day’s events. Instead, it was a swimmer who was preparing for next week’s Brazilian National Championships and had completed competition earlier in the week.
Note: the original last sentence of this story says that we were unable to ascertain information that this was the reason for Sun’s withdrawal from the 1500 final. Brazil, China, and FINA have now all said that it was unrelated.
Hello? Why would you tell us that he was involved in a physical altercation and not divulge the details of the altercation?
i wonder if xenon is short for xenophobic idiot.
I just heard something else
Basically he hit the female swimmer during the warm up and was no accident because she was in his way whilst swimming. It then got over to a few of the male Brazilian swimmers who were not too happy about it. They found sun yang, decked him and locked him in a locker…hence why nobody knew where he was.
Again, this is what Iv just been told
Brazil is under a lot of pressure for being host for the upcoming Olympics. They only won just one gold medal, and 7 medals in total in this event. It would be embarassing if they produced the same results in the Olympics. This probably explains why she taken every opportunity to practice in the warm-up pool
It’s very clear what happened to Sun Yang. He not only assaulted the Brazilian female swimmer but was aggressive to other swimmers from other countries in warm-ups throughout the meet. Sun Yang’s celebrations after winning also border on aggressiveness. The assault was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, causing tremendous embarrassment to the Chinese which is why they apologized to the Brazilian coaches. To save face, rather than acknowledging the assault, the Chinese coaches (government) forced Yang to withdrawn for medical reasons and everybody went along this face saving.
Chinese = doping and faked !
Does MRN–stands for maniacal recalcitrant neo-nazi ! incapable of analytical conversation and logical assumptions for universal communications.
MRN=STUPID!
IAN, yes. FINA specifically forbid the use of paddles and flippers in warm-up pool.
http://www.fina.org/H2O/docs/events/kazan2015/masters/masters_entry_booklet.pdf
page 51, WARM-UP PROCEDURES:
Pull-buoys, kick boards, fins, hand paddles and other training aids consider
inappropriate are not allowed in the competition pool or warm-up pool, as well as
watches and heavy jewellery.
i am furious about the behavior of brazil team, they ruined the spot light of the competition of kazan 2015.