{"id":382380,"date":"2019-07-23T01:03:40","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T08:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=382380"},"modified":"2019-07-23T01:11:57","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T08:11:57","slug":"australian-coaches-back-mack-horton-call-on-fina-to-back-isl-zero-tolerance-on-doping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/australian-coaches-back-mack-horton-call-on-fina-to-back-isl-zero-tolerance-on-doping\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Coaches Back Mack Horton & Call On FINA To Back ISL Zero-Tolerance On Doping"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Australian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association <\/strong>(ASCTA) has called on FINA<\/strong>, the international federation, to follow the example of the International Swimming League<\/strong> and\u00a0take a\u00a0zero-tolerance approach to anti-doping “… rather than issue meaningless letters of warning against clean athletes who take a stand”.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued a moment ago, ASCTA joined a chorus of athletes and coaches from around the world in backing the stance made by Mack Horton<\/strong> when he refused to step up on the podium next to China’s Sun Yang<\/strong> after the 400m freestyle final<\/a> at the World Championships here in Gwangju, Korea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Horton decided to make a stand against Sun\u2019s presence at a championship at a time when an anti-doping case against him is pending at the Court of Arbitration for Sport<\/strong> (CAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A tentative September date has been set for a hearing into the World Anti-Doping Agency<\/strong>\u2018s March challenge to a FINA Doping Panel hearing into troubling events<\/a> that unfolded at an out-of-competition test near Sun\u2019s home last September, the events surrounding which were revealed by the Sunday Times in January.<\/p>\n

It was March before WADA lodged a case with the CAS to challenge a FINA Doping Panel ruling that let Sun go free but handed him a series of stern rebukes for his behaviour during four hours of argument with out-of-competition testers who called at his home on September 4 last year.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, Sun’s lawyers protested their client’s innocence in a statement that said the Olympic 200m freestyle champion had requested that the CAS hold its hearing in public in the interests of transparency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Horton’s silent protest has earned plaudits from international peers in the pool and on the deck<\/a>, while in China, his stance has faced heavy criticism and abuse from fans of Sun Yang.<\/p>\n

Now, ASCTA has issued a statement in which it notes the failure of sports organisations such as FINA to deal with a dark past, including allowing all GDR results to stand despite overwhelming evidence of almost two decades of systematic cheating.<\/p>\n

FINA has long been criticised for having allowed, to this day, men such as Dr. Lothar Kipke to keep FINA honours given to them when they were members of the medical and anti-doping committees of the federation in the 1970s and 1980s. In the German doping trials of 1999-2000, Kipke and others\u00a0were handed criminal convictions for their role in the abuse of minors during the 1970s and 1980s as part of the State Plan 14:25 systematic doping program.<\/p>\n

Since then, the sport has lived under a cloud of doping controversy related to China in the 1990s and beyond and \u00a0 related to Russia, which in the lead-up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games had the worst doping record of all nations in the pool for the previous decade. Russia was barred from official participation because of the growing crisis related to the revelations of Russian whistleblowers exposing corrupt practices at the heart of sport in the country:<\/p>\n