{"id":280937,"date":"2017-10-18T06:20:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T13:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=280937"},"modified":"2017-10-18T06:24:29","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T13:24:29","slug":"sun-yang-defends-masters-thesis-about-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/sun-yang-defends-masters-thesis-about-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun Yang Defends Master’s Thesis About Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-time Olympic Gold Medalist<\/a> Sun Yang<\/strong><\/a> defended his master’s thesis from\u00a0Soochow University (SU) on Oct. 17.<\/p>\n

The topic? None other than himself and one of these medals:<\/p>\n

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#Chinese<\/a>#swimmer<\/a>#SunYang<\/a> defended his master thesis, “An analysis on the skills of the Men’s 200m freestyle champion at the 31st #Olympics<\/a>“. pic.twitter.com\/qjZluobDjq<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 ShanghaiEye (@ShanghaiEye) October 17, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The university is located in East China’s Jiangsu Province where Yang is studying physical education and currently training for Tokyo 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n
His thesis, titled “An analysis of the skills of the Men’s 200m freestyle champion at the 31st Olympics,” evaluated his experience in the race, and not any of the drama surrounding it.<\/p>\n
The defense left Chinese fans of both swimming and academia with a variety of feelings. One commented:\u00a0“He is definitely entitled to research his own success. He is the most brilliant swimmer in China, after all.”<\/p>\n
Others were not buying it: “In short, I’m not convinced,” added\u00a0another commenter.\u00a0“How could he finish all his courses when he had to train every day?”<\/p>\n
This is not the first time Yang has created comment controversy. After\u00a0testing positive for the stimulant\u00a0 trimetazidine in 2014<\/a>, Yang has been one of the most discussed swimmers worldwide.<\/p>\n
In 2015, he was awarded Swimmer of the Meet honors at the World Championships, causing a\u00a0complete outrage on Twitter<\/a>. The Tweets came after not only his doping controversy, but after he skipped his 1500 free<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n
The reactions to his self-defense are\u00a0sparking similar controversy as more people learn about his thesis subject.<\/p>\n
The Global Times<\/a> and The Shanghaiist<\/a> contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n