Doping-tainted swimming star Sun Yang’s Olympics career appears to be over.
The three-time Olympic gold medallist is set to miss the Paris Olympics after China published its selection criteria for the 2024 Games this week.
The Chinese Swimming Association said on Friday its team would be chosen based on the results of the world championships in 2023 and the 2024 world championships in Doha as well as results at the national championships, which will take place on April 19-27.
That would rule out six-time Olympic medallist Sun, whose doping suspension does not end until May.
At the age of 32, Yang would be 36 years old when the 2028 Olympics are held in Los Angeles.
The news of China’s selection move will be warmly received by his competitors — including Aussie world champion Sam Short.
Short, who was one of the breakout stars of global swimming this year, would have faced off against Yang in several distances.
The Chinese star has previously won Olympic medals in the 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle and 1500m freestyle distances.
Short this year won gold at the 2023 World Championships in the 400m freestyle. He also picked up silver in the 800m and bronze in the 1500m.
Now there will be one less rival in the Paris pool at next year’s Olympics.
China now heads into the Paris Games with Qin Haiyang as its biggest male swimming superstar after he completed a rare triple-sweep of the breaststroke events at the 2023 World Championships this year.
The Chinese Swimming Association said in a statement: “The top 8 results from the finals of each swimming event from the 2023 Fukuoka World Aquatics Championships and the 2024 Doha World Aquatics Championships (and the) 2024 National Swimming Championship results will be treated as qualifying results.”
Sun, 32, was suspended for eight years by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2020 after smashing vials of blood during a 2018 doping test.
Sun, who was banned for three months in 2014 for a separate doping offence, has always protested his innocence in the murky events of September 2018.
He succeeded in reducing the ban after appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but the ban remained in place for four-years and three-months.
Sun has expressed an interest in returning to competition in time for Paris, which would be his fourth Olympics.
In a post on his Weibo social media page on Saturday, he said: “Swimming is an inalienable part of my life, and I will always be passionate about it.” He made no other statement.
He burst to prominence at the 2012 London Olympics, winning golds in the 400m freestyle and 1,500m freestyle plus silver in the 200m freestyle and a bronze medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay Four years later in Rio he won the 200m freestyle gold and 400m freestyle silver. He is also a 11-time world champion.
— with AFP
