Sun Yang
Sun Yang is a Chinese Olympic and former world-record-holding competitive swimmer. In 2012, Sun became the first Chinese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in men's swimming. Sun is the first male swimmer in history to earn Olympic and World Championship gold medals at every freestyle distance from 200 to 1500 metres. A three-time Olympic gold medalist and eleven-time world champion, he is the most decorated Chinese swimmer in history. In 2017, NBC Sports described him as "very arguably the greatest freestyle swimmer of all time".
In September 2018 Sun was involved in a controversial incident during an out-of-competition doping test at his home. The doping control assistant lacked proper accreditation and took photos of Sun without his permission, leading him to refuse the blood sample collection. A security guard broke open the container to prevent the testers from taking the vials. The DCA later admitted to unprofessional conduct. FINA ruled that Sun did not violate anti-doping rules due to the DCA's actions. However, on 28 February 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned FINA's decision, banning Sun for eight years for tampering with the doping control process. Some analysts opined that the trial was marred by severe translation problems, conflict of interest, bias and an "absence of evidence" around doping activity.
CAS also ruled that Sun would not be stripped of any of his medals, noting that doping tests conducted shortly before and after the aborted doping control in September 2018 returned negative results. Furthermore CAS stated that "in the absence of any evidence that the Athlete may have engaged in doping activity since 4 September 2018, including on the occasion of the FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea in July 2019, the results achieved by the Athlete in the period prior to the CAS award being issued should not be disqualified". On 22 June 2021, after a retrial, CAS upheld the ban but reduced it to four years and three months due to issues related to lack of impartiality in the prior trial.
Early life
Sun was born on 1 December 1991 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. He was named after his parents' surnames. Sun is an only child, and his family is athletic. His father, Sun Quanhong, was a basketball player for Anhui Tigong. His mother, Yang Ming, was a volleyball player for Zhejiang and is a sports coach. Sun started swimming in 1998, and his potential was recognised by a teacher at Jinglun Sports School in Hangzhou.Career
2007–2011: Early career
Sun made his international debut at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. He finished 32nd in the 400 metre freestyle and 23rd in the 800 metre freestyle. In early 2008, he competed at the "Good Luck Beijing" China Open, a test event for the 2008 Summer Olympics. He finished 2nd in the 400 metre freestyle with a time of 3:49.34. At the Olympics, Sun, aged 16, finished 28th in the 400 metre freestyle, unable to reach the final. He later came 7th in the qualifying heats of the 1500 metre freestyle, reaching the final, where he finished last. Sun rebounded the following year at the 2009 World Championships, where he won his first international medal, a bronze, in the 1500 metre freestyle with a time of 14:46.84. He finished 18th in the 400 metre freestyle with a time of 3:47.51.Sun achieved further success during the 2010 Asian Games. He won gold medals in the 1500 metre freestyle and the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay, and silver medals in the 200 metre and 400 metre freestyle. His 1500-metre freestyle time of 14:35.43 was a new Asian record and the second-fastest time in history, behind Grant Hackett, whose record Sun would surpass the following year. Sun was subsequently named Rookie of the Year at the 2010 China Central Television Sports Awards.
On the first day of competition at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, Sun came 2nd in the 400 metre freestyle with a time of 3:43.24, 1.2 seconds behind South Korean Park Tae-hwan. Three days later, Sun won his first World Championship title in the 800 metre freestyle with a time of 7:38.57. After a day of rest, he swam the anchor leg in the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay, helping the Chinese team win bronze. The last day of competition, Sun competed in the 1500 metre freestyle. He won the race with a time of 14:34.14, ten seconds ahead of the rest of the competition. At age 19, Sun beat Hackett's world record of 14:34.56, which had stood for ten years. This was the longest-held world record in swimming and the only men's swimming world record not to have been beaten during the techsuit era.
2012: Breakthrough at the Olympics
For the 2012 Summer Olympics, Sun was considered a favourite in the 400 metre and 1500 metre freestyle, as well as a contender in the 200 metre freestyle. In his first event, the 400 metre freestyle, he won the gold medal with a time of 3:40.14, breaking the Olympic record previously held by Ian Thorpe and becoming the first Chinese male swimmer to win a gold medal at the Olympics. His time was also the third fastest in history, 0.07 seconds away from the world record, and setting a new Asian record. After a day of recuperating, Sun competed in the 200 metre freestyle. He won a silver medal in the final, tying with Park Tae-hwan with a time of 1:44.93, a new national record. The following day, Sun swam the anchor leg in the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay to help the Chinese team win bronze, China's first Olympic medal in a men's relay event.After the relay, Sun did not return to the pool until the last day of competition to compete in his strongest event, the 1500 metre freestyle. He had qualified for the final with the fastest time. At the initial line-up on the starting blocks, a step-down command was issued because of noise from the crowd, but instead of stepping back, Sun reacted by diving in. The officials ruled the early dive was the result of noise from the crowd and did not constitute a false start, and Sun was allowed to continue in the competition. He went on to win the race with a time of 14:31.02, breaking his own world record by over three seconds. He finished over eight seconds ahead of second-place finisher, Canadian Ryan Cochrane. With two gold medals and a team bronze medal, Sun became the most decorated Chinese male swimmer in Olympic history, and the first swimmer to win the 400/1500 double since Vladimir Salnikov at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Sun completed the last 50 metres of the race in 25.68 seconds, nearly two seconds faster than Cochrane.
2013: Continued success
From 28 July to 4 August 2013, Sun competed at the World Championships. On the first day of competition, he won gold in the 400 metre freestyle with a time of 3:41.59. It was nearly 1.5 seconds off his Olympic-winning time from the previous year, but he was still 3.23 seconds ahead of runner-up Kosuke Hagino. Two days later, Sun retained his title in the 800 metre freestyle with a time of 7:41.36. It was his second gold medal in the Championship and the 100th gold medal won by China in World Aquatics Championships' history.On the sixth day of competition, Sun was tasked with swimming the anchor leg for the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay. China barely qualified for the final in eighth place. Going into the last leg of the race, China was in fifth place, over two seconds behind France and Japan, but Sun was able to overtake both teams in the end for a final time of 1:43.16. This was the second-fastest split time in history and 1.82 seconds faster than the other 31 swimmers in the final, including Ryan Lochte and Yannick Agnel. Accounting for the relay exchange advantage, it was still over a second faster than his flat start time of 1:44.93.
On the final day of the competition, Sun successfully defended his title in the 1500 metre freestyle. He finished with a time of 14:41.15, beating runner-up Ryan Cochrane by 1.33 seconds. This result made Sun the second swimmer in history, after Grant Hackett, to win gold medals in all three long-distance freestyle events—400, 800, and 1500 metre—in a single World Championships.
One month later, Sun competed in the 2013 National Games of China. Aiming to become the first man to win seven gold medals at a single championship, he added to his range the 100 metre freestyle, an event typically reserved for sprinters. With the games holding the same schedule as the Olympics, he competed first in the 400 metre freestyle, winning in 3:43.68—over a second ahead of Hao Yun. The following day, Sun won the 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay, swimming the anchor leg in 48.14 seconds. He followed these performances the next day by setting a new Asian record in the 200 metre freestyle with a time of 1:44.47, about half a second faster than his time in London. The following day, he won bronze in the 100 metre freestyle, finishing with a time of 48.94 seconds, his first time finishing under 49 seconds.
2014: Doping ban and Asian Games
In May 2014, the Chinese Swimming Association handed Sun a warning but let him off without suspension after he tested positive for trimetazidine, a drug that was banned four months earlier and classified as a stimulant at the time by the World Anti-Doping Agency. It was December 2014 at the insistence of FINA, the global regulator, that Chinada confirmed it had handed Sun a retrospective suspension of three months. The lenient penalty was based on this: Sun said that Dr. Ba Zhen, an Olympic team doctor for Chinese swimming, prescribed the drug to treat heart palpitations, a condition he has suffered since 2008, and was unaware that it had been newly added to the banned substances list. After reviewing the full case file, WADA chose not to pursue the case after an investigation. They also announced that they would not challenge the CSA's decision to impose a retrospective three-month sanction. Since Sun's ban, WADA has reclassified trimetazidine from an S6 stimulant to an S4 hormone and metabolic modulator. Dr Ba Zhen was handed two suspensions by WADA, the first for supplying a banned substance to Sun, the second, to run concurrently, because journalist Craig Lord alerted WADA to a photograph confirming that the doctor had worked with Sun at the Asian Games in August 2014 at a time when he ought to have been serving a suspension. Asked by FINA to explain, the CSA said that Ba Zhen had not been accredited for the Games through them. Ba Zhen also played a part in events that led to Sun's suspension for four years and three months after an altercation with anti-doping testers in September 2018.Sun claimed gold medal in the 200 metre freestyle at Chinese Spring Nationals in May 2014. At the 2014 Asian Games, Sun participated in the 200, 400, and 1500 metre freestyle events. He won silver in the 200 metre freestyle, finishing behind Kosuke Hagino. In the 400 metre freestyle, he came 1st with a time of 3:43.23, which was 1.25 seconds ahead of runner-up Hagino. Leading from start to finish, Sun won gold in the 1500 metre freestyle. He finished with a time of 14:49.75, over five seconds ahead of runner-up Kohei Yamamoto. Sun also participated in the 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay, helping China win gold with an overall time of 3:13.17, setting a new Asian Record in the event.