Matt Horton and sun yang

Did Matt Horton do the right thing in not taking the podium

  • Yes

    Votes: 26 74.3%
  • No

    Votes: 9 25.7%

  • Total voters
    35
Couldn’t find a thread on this and there doesn’t appear to be a swimming board or thread.

Matt refused to share podium with the suspected drug cheat who had previously tested positive to a stimulant but served penalty in secret then allegedly smashed a vial of blood when tested.

I think that Matt should not have done what he did as he isn’t the governing or regulatory body. If there is a beef with the way FINA administer sport and doping regulation perhaps countries like Australia should instead look at spilling the board there?
 
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Couldn’t find a thread on this and there doesn’t appear to be a swimming board or thread.

Matt refused to share podium with the suspected drug cheat who had previously tested positive to a stimulant but served penalty in secret then allegedly smashed a vial of blood when tested.

I think that Matt should not have done what he did as he isn’t the governing or regulatory body. If there is a beef with the way FINA administer sport and doping regulation perhaps countries like Australia should instead look at spilling the board there?
Mack has a mate
Will FiNA punish him?
 
Last edited:
Matt has a mate
Will FiNA punish him?
I think both got reprimanded (the Brit and sun yang)
 

sosos

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Age journo Andrew Wu wrote an interesting article today wondering if Mack would also protest against his teammates.


.... But he does not seem to have too much of an issue with other athletes who violate anti-doping rules, such as teammate Thomas Fraser-Holmes, who makes his return to the long-course squad in Gwangju.

Fraser-Holmes was one of two Australian swimmers to serve 12-month suspensions starting in 2017 for missing three drugs tests in the space of 12 months. The other was Jarrod Poort. A third, Madeline Groves, had her ban overturned after FINA found testers did not do enough to locate her for a third test......

 
Age journo Andrew Wu wrote an interesting article today wondering if Mack would also protest against his teammates.


.... But he does not seem to have too much of an issue with other athletes who violate anti-doping rules, such as teammate Thomas Fraser-Holmes, who makes his return to the long-course squad in Gwangju.

Fraser-Holmes was one of two Australian swimmers to serve 12-month suspensions starting in 2017 for missing three drugs tests in the space of 12 months. The other was Jarrod Poort. A third, Madeline Groves, had her ban overturned after FINA found testers did not do enough to locate her for a third test......

Wu does mention that none of these athletes had failed and served a secret penalty. This appears to be a large issue for Mack (animosity was present during rio olympics before the blood smash incident- which is also a magnitude greater than not being locatable).
The equivalent (for not locatable) would be that Greek runner (Ekaterina thanou) who won silver in Sydney then went mia for drug tests before Athens. (Well Mia by faking a bike accident..)
 

Yojimbo

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If it's that big a deal for Mack Horton here is something don't compete in the first place, felt sorry for
the poor bloke who came third that might be the biggest moment of his career and no one will ever
remember it. Protest against Fina by not competing in the first place and let them know exactly why
you are doing it. Lots of cheats out there, but only the dumb ones get caught.
 
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Was actually reading an article about this earlier today that I thought took a pretty good look at the whole thing.


I think he’s right; the protest should be at the anti-doping process that even allows something like this to occur, not the easy villain trope of Sun Yang ‘the dirty foreigner’.

Obviously Yang is incredibly suspicious; as is the 3 Australian swimmers who missed three tests, and to be honest - most elite athletes. The entire risk:reward is weighted incredibly heavily toward the athlete given the relatively minimal risk of being caught against the massive rewards on offer.
 

AvantGardener

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If it's that big a deal for Mack Horton here is something don't compete in the first place, felt sorry for
the poor bloke who came third that might be the biggest moment of his career and no one will ever
remember it. Protest against Fina by not competing in the first place and let them know exactly why
you are doing it. Lots of cheats out there, but only the dumb ones get caught.
Bloke who came third probably remembered more for it now because it will be repeatedly shown
 

Aeglos

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Not great timing for Shayna Jack to fail a doping test...

lol yup. real bad given all the carry on not only from Horton within the Oz camp.
It'll be interesting to see what it was.
Out of comp +ve eliminates a lot of stimulants etc as the possible substance.
 

Aeglos

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He will be excited in a couple of months because he will be elevated to 2nd when Horton is declared the winner.

Swimming will end up like le tour where a whole bunch of years are blacked out, or weightlifting where I’m pretty sure they’re still announcing medalists from 2008 and there’s probably a guy who didn’t qualify for the final that’s now got a bronze medal.
 
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Swimming will end up like le tour where a whole bunch of years are blacked out, or weightlifting where I’m pretty sure they’re still announcing medalists from 2008 and there’s probably a guy who didn’t qualify for the final that’s now got a bronze medal.
Is it any worse atm than say athletics?
 

Aeglos

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Is it any worse atm than say athletics?

Not really.
We (Australians) just aren’t competitive in the big ticket track and field events to have a situation like this occur.
No 100m Australian sprinter to protest against all the Jamaicans for instance.
If we’re honest, if not for Horton most wouldn’t have even heard of the guy he’s protesting against (whose name I’d have to google to be 100% I’d get it right).
 
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The worst was the Irish woman at Atlanta that come from nowhere in her late 20s to win gold medals, was so obvious she was cheating.

Michelle Smith ?

And when you find out that FINA's rule to test all 3 place getters and 1 random other finalist was changed to skip where-ever Smith and the Chinese swimmers finished.

Because they knew full well there was doping.

WADA are the only ones doing anything to stop sports being a complete farce.
 

Demons09

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Reckon Horton doesn't like the bloke and is just using this to stick the knife in more. Call out the other dopers if that's your real beef.
Mate Yang is his direct opponent and considering he’s facing an investigation atm Yang shouldn’t even be competing , I’d be pissed off as well as was the British swimmer.
 

matthew_s

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Mate Yang is his direct opponent and considering he’s facing an investigation atm Yang shouldn’t even be competing , I’d be pi**ed off as well as was the British swimmer.

EXACTLY.

All the idiots going on about Aussie hypocrisy...the point is, Jack was withdrawn when her positive test happened. As soon as there is a chance an Aussie athlete may contaminate competition they are withdrawn. China does not do the same.

People comparing the number of positive test results and concluding Australia is worse are crazy. There's no way of knowing what happens in China.

Essendon aside, it's unlikely Australia has had any state or team sponsored doping programs...China...well...
 

matthew_s

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Yang has very right to compete under the Anti-Doping rules - His case was not proven by an Anti-doping Tribunal and then WADA appealed to CAS - So at this stage he is innocent - The same rules were applied to the EFC 34.

doesnt mean Harton (or anyone else) has to like it.

Good old Yaco, how many years later and still a PED apologist.
 

Lebbo73

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Yang has very right to compete under the Anti-Doping rules - His case was not proven by an Anti-doping Tribunal and then WADA appealed to CAS - So at this stage he is innocent - The same rules were applied to the EFC 34.
How did you come to this conclusion? Yang destroyed the sample/test kit.
 
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