Home / Furniss: Britain Great With Gold, 5 Silvers & 4 In 7 4ths Punished By * Of Dope & Doubt

Furniss: Britain Great With Gold, 5 Silvers & 4 In 7 4ths Punished By * Of Dope & Doubt

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Bill Furniss, the head coach of Britain celebrating the nation’s finest result in the pool since the age of pioneers more than a century ago, has shot a cannon ball across the bows of  FINA and the International Olympic Committee for failing to protect clean athletes.

Britain, he said, was celebrating its best Olympic Games in the pool with a gold and five silvers but the nation was also the most punished of all countries in Rio by the presence of swimmers who had a doping record to their name. It was time, he said, for all who test positive, to be barred from the Olympic Games as a hard and fast rule.

Just below the surface of a medals tally only seen once before by a British shoal at the Games, at London 1908, there were a frustrating seven fourth places – and four of those races placed “a swimmer towing the asterisk” of doping with them. Furniss said:

“It’s our best-ever Olympics – that’s pleasing. We raced very well all week. We were resilient all week and that’s what we’ve been working on. We believe we belong at this level now. Six medals is great.”

He then gritted his teeth and added:

“It sticks in my throat a bit, I’ve got to say: we had seven fourths and four of those ahead of us were individuals who failed a drug test. I didn’t say anything in the build up because it was a distraction but I think we’ve been penalised more than any other nation here.”

He spoke directly to those at the IOC seeking to find a way to keep cheats out of the Games when he said:

“I’ll be perfectly honest: If you fail a drugs test you should not be at the Olympic Games. I can’t says it more clearly than that.”

Francesca Halsall – by PBK

Chloe Sutton – by Ian MacNicol

Fran Halsall‘s near miss in the 50m freestyle on the last night of racing in Rio marked the seventh fourth place for the national team this week. Of those seven, three on the podium ahead of the Brits were towing the asterisk of a doping suspension. Halsall finished behind Aliaksandra Herasimenia* (BLR), while on the 200m breaststroke, Chloe Tutton finished fourth behind Yuliya Efimova*, the Russian who was booed and jeered to her blocks all week after being barred from Rio and then reinstated not once but twice this year in the flip-flop of decisions from the IOC, FINA, the international swimming federation, and after decisions form the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

James Guy by Patrick B. Kraemer

Then there was fourth for James Guy in the 200m freestyle won by Sun Yang*, the Chinese controversy who tested positive in May 2014 but whose case only came to light in November that year after China had sought to impose no penalty on its star turn. FINA accepted without challenge a retroactive three-month suspension imposed on Sun by the Chinese Swimming Association, an organisation that has benefitted from a contract in which the swimmer must hand over half his earnings, estimated to be more than £10 million.

Andrew Willis –  by Ian MacNicol

And then there was Andrew Willis, fourth with two lifetime bests in the realm of  2:07s but locked out by Anton Chupkov. There is no asterisk beside Chupkov’s name but lines official and unofficial in Britain were clear: given the weight of evidence in three WADA reports that pointed to state involvement in doping, in cover-up and corruption and given that swimming is heavily linked to the rot, and given that Russian swimming still has two undeclared EPO tests it has yet to answer to, then Russian should have been served a blanket ban.

That it was not, in peer swimming terms, returned four swimmers with doping records to Olympic waters.

Furniss said the custodians of swimming and the Olympics, had dumped a “shambolic mess” on the sport by failing to keep cheats out of the water. Tight lipped before and during racing in Rio to avoid the issue being a distraction to his team, Furniss said: “My message to the people who govern our sport is that we want a clean sport.”

Adam Peaty celebrates – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Asked about Peaty’s domimnance and what Britain has to say if people cast aspersions on him, Furniss defended the Olympic champion:

“Look, I know what Adam Peaty does. The job that he and Mel Marshall (coach) have done is unbelievable. I see Adam regularly and I see the work that he’s put in. He’s also had a very measured improvement. You can see where he comes form. That guy’s is absolutely 100% the model of what a swimmer should be.”

Peaty and the other medallists were “great” but “the thing that please me most is not the six medals but the seven fourths. It shows we’ve got depth and that’s a platform and this is a young team. We’ve got some older swimmers who are swimming well again but we’ve got some exciting new talent coming through.”

He did not want to see that ruined by cheating, telling Olympic and siwmming bosses:

“My message is that I’ve got four individuals that I’ve got to explain to that they’ve done everything right and they are not being looked after and everything seems to be focussed around how fair can we be to people who’ve not passed drugs tests,” he added.

“It’s just not right. It sticks in my throat. We need to clean it up. How you do it is difficult but that’s not my problem. All I can say to our athletes is that we’ve got to ignore it and get on with it. But we expect a clean sport and a level playing field.”

The inherent conflict of interest in fedetations being in charge of anti-doping is clearm say critics such as the World Swimming Coaches Association, which has backed IOC plans to have a fully independent World Anti-Doping Agency take responsibility for drug tests and related issues way from the likes of FINA.

Last year after FINA awarded its Best Man trophy to Sun at the World Championships despite Adam Peaty having a clear claim to that honour, the international federation’s director Cornel Marculescu said: “You can’t condemn the stars for a minor doping offence.”

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

Sun Yang by PBK

In Rio, Marculescu rushed up to Sun after he was presented with the gold medal for the 200m freestyle and …

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