Photo Courtesy: Joao Marc Bosch
INCHEON, South Korea, September 25. Chinese swimming king Sun Yang continues to stir the pot in South Korea as he reportedly has been caught on tape saying that the Japanese national anthem is “ugly” according to media reports including NDTV Sports.
“The Chinese let their anger out tonight,” Sun is heard as saying on a Chinese-language audio passed to AFP. “Honestly speaking the Japanese national anthem sounds ugly.”
This was after China topped Japan in the men’s 400 freestyle relay on Wednesday night.
Sun’s continuing to gain plenty of media attention for his outside-of-the-pool antics in the past year.
Last summer, he actually gained worldwide sympathy when he was suspended indefinitely by China’s swimming federation when he was arrested for driving without a license after a bus rear-ended him. That ban lasted six months with most of the swimming community believing that China was way too harsh in making him serve a week in jail along with a full ban on anything swimming or sponsor-related until they let him off the hook half-a-year later.
Earlier this month, Sun talked trash to South Korea’s Tae Hwan Park in a series of television commercials to gin up some interest in the rivalry at the Asian Games. Sun brushed off any criticism saying that he was just reading lines for a sponsor and that they were comical in nature to gain viewers for the sport, and that seemed good enough for most in the sport.
Today’s revelation if proven true, definitely calls into question Sun’s sportsmanship since he ascended to the top of the sport with his amazing world records in the distance freestyle as a double Olympic champion.
Sun did go on to explain that he’s still battling his hand injury from his first night swim in the 200-meter free.
“My hands still hurts and I have the 1,500m to go,” Sun said. “There would have been an impact (on the race) if I was the leadoff swimmer as I could have had a weak start. But the coaches put me in third so there would be less pressure. Right now I’m struggling for speed and I would feel less pressure in there. We were ahead of Japan when I touched and I knew it would be no sweat for (Ning) to beat them given his speed.”
Even that response shows some serious cockiness, even though the statement proved to be true that Ning was unbeatable in the sprints this week in Incheon.