Top 20 Most Significant Swimming Stories Of 2016: #16 – Trust, Funds & Fair Dinkum

SwimVortex continues a countdown of the most significant swimming stories of Olympic Year 2016. 

We started with progress, the heights of Katinka Hosszu and  the Canadian Comeback, turned to a lack of progress in The Swimming Selfie and then considered inspiration and the impact of Michael Phelps on a generation knee-high when he was racing in his first Olympic final. 

Today, we look at issues of trust, of competition in which the competitor is not welcome unless the terms of engagement speak of Fair Dinkum free of doping and the influence of rogues who have surely used Australia as the face of acceptability for the past several years while engaged in the unacceptable.

No 16 – Questions of Faith & Fair Dinkum

The roller-coaster relationship between Australia and China has reached crisis point.

Why crisis? Well, here are a couple of definitions: “a time of intense difficulty or danger”; and “a time when a difficult or important decision must be made”.

The first applies to those in China, athlete or otherwise, whose paths cross with rogues; the second applies to (among others) Denis Cotterell, a coach caught between the devil and the deep red sea.

Difficult decision. Before we consider what that it, best answer some simple questions on a complex theme:

Are there people within Chinese sport who want a clean, safe environment for athletes and Fair Play as their standard? Yes, absolutely. Does China hava an appalling record of doping in the past 25 years in swimming? Yes, absolutely. Has Denis Cotterell made a significant contribution to the success of Australia in the pool down the years? Yes, absolutely. Has that made him and the Miami set-up he helped lead rich, or even financially secure, enough without having to turn to secondary means of coaching income beyond the Australian program? Apparently not. Has his involvement with Chinese swimming made a significant difference to his income? Yes, absolutely. Was Swimming Australia right to make him sever ties with Sun Yang* after the Olympic 400 and 1500m freestyle champion of 2012 fell foul of anti-doping rules. Yes, absolutely. Were Tom Fraser-Holmes and Grant Hackett right to raise in the public domain their concerns over the impact of Chinese swimmers on the home Australian program? Yes, absolutely.

Grant Hackett and coach Denis Cotterell, courtesy of Swimming Australia

Sun Yang of China – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Let’s be clear: this article does not make it into our top 20 significant stories of 2016 because of Cotterell’s Miami maelstrom but the issues and dilemmas raised by Queensland conflict are pertinent to a much wider world of choices that impact the lives of swimmers, coaches and swimming governance far and wide.

It was early March when Australian swimmers turned to their coaches and others trading in dollars and deals at what they see as their expense and took a stand: ‘We don’t want to share our training pools with the Chinese.’

This was nothing whatsoever to do with racism or China hating or any of those other accusations made against those who note troubling facts about Chinese swimming. It was the expression of genuine concern over an uncomfortable mix of systems a focus beyond Australians at a funded centre. In an exclusive report by Jessica Halloran and Amy Harris at the Australian Sunday Telegraph, Cotterell’s Grant Hackett and Tom Fraser-Holmes nailed two issues that came down to this: why are we constantly sharing a pool with our rivals; and why does it feel like we’re getting tested far more than they are?

Sun Yang by PBK

A little background: go back just over a year and we find Swimming Australia telling Cotterell to sever links with Sun in the wake of a positive test for banned substances that was handled covertly and ended in an entirely unsatisfactory outcome. It was May when the swimmer tested positive. By September, the case was well know to Chinese authorities and yet they allowed their charge to race to three gold medals at the Asian Games. At some point down the line, even FINA felt forced to intervene and instructed the Chinese Swimming Association that a penalty of some king was compulsory.

It was November 24 when a small Xinhua news report let it be known that China has imposed a retrospective three-month suspension on Sun. Retrospective. Meaning: a token slap on the wrist that does not take the swimmer out of the water for a single day. FINA revealed that China had sought to impose no penalty but the international federation (and WADA) accepted the token slap in the face for clean sport, the only excuse the swimmer and China had: Chinada didn’t update its Chinese version of the WADA Code for 2014 and as such we didn’t notice that the heart booster the swimmer had been taking for “several years” (through at least some those hardest of sets set by Cotterell, one has to assume) had been added to the list of banned substances.

Sun’s medical man, the one we know of, Dr Ba Zhen, was slapped a year-long suspension, dated from May 2014. Then he appeared on deck with Sun at the Asian Games in Korea. A second offence: for which he got a second year of penalty from the World Anti-Doping Agency. He world still with Sun and other Chinese national teamsters and some aspiring to that status.

Sun Yang and Dr Ba Zhen, back working with the swimmer after serving two anti-doping suspensions – social media, Twitter, screen shot

The questions for Cotterell: had Ba and the rest of Sun’s medical team told him? Had the coach known that Sun was taking medicine for a heart condition? Had he experienced the same with any Australian swimmer down the years of his long career? Had the coach asked for medical information that might tell him whether it was safe for Sun to be belting out sets of 10x400s and the like?

Whatever the answers, the outcome was clear: Sun was gone; no funded centre in Australia is allowed to coach those who have a doping record to their names; and all overseas visitors training in Australia must agree to be out-of-competition tested by the national anti-doping agency whenever called to provide urine or blood for analysis – and they must also fund the costs of that; and Cotterell’s assistant at Miami is to coach Sun beyond the program and during a time of inquiry into complaints (upheld) from parents at Miami over the coach’s treatment of their children (one boy was reported in Australia media to have been forced on all fours and made to howl like a wolf).

The outcome for Sun (as well as King) was an uncomfortable time at world titles in Kazan that summer of 2015, his campaign, including a compliant from Brazil that he’s behaved in aggressive manner to one of its women swimmers in warm-up, concluding in a fit of temper in which he kicked a locker in, according to witnesses, and was then withdrwan or withdrew from the defence of the 1500m freestyle final at the 11th hour. A heart issue was cited in FINA response to questions after the race went without Sun, with an empty lane and with a disgruntled Pal Joensen (FAR and DEN) forced to watch from the stands when he could have been racing as reserve had they old him in time, acvording to standard proceedure for withdrawals.

Cornel Marculescu, director of FINA [Photo by Patrick B, Kraemer]

It was a media theme and when ZDF, the German TV station, asked Cornel Marculescu about it all, he replied:

“You can’t condemn the stars for a minor doping offence”.

There in that sentence you had it all: two conflicting hats. Impossible to promote the “stars” while attempting to catch the fallen ones. The IOC and WADA are working on a new realm in which the role of international federations in anti-doping will be removed from their plate. There is some resistance. The question is why? Outcomes and answers are expected in 2017.

Lest We Forget

Qing Wenyi, as she appeared in news coverage of her life and death in qq.com reports

By the turn of the year, Qing Wenyi will have been of this world no more for almost 15 months. The 17-year-old was cremated some 36 hours after her sudden death in the night at a hospital not far from the dormitory where teammates her her scream out before she collapsed. No autopsy, no cause of death.

Imagine that in Australia. Unthinkable. For some in China it clearly is thinkable – and not worth questioning much at all. Hardly a word of protest – and none from the Chinese Swimming Association, non, neither from the FINA Bureau member from China. And no word from FINA, the body that within a year would be putting out statements marking its positon on Ryan Lochte, when in fact the matter of his misconduct on the last evening of racing in Rio was not within the bounds of their jurisdiction any more than any act that might bring the sport into disrepute is.

FINA is not to blame for such things but did it saying anything at all? Did it even ask? And if it did, what was it told by its member from China?

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