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Horton’s comments a win for ‘clean athletes’ or just ungracious?

Mack Horton's 'drug cheat' comments sparked outrage in China.

Mack Horton's 'drug cheat' comments sparked outrage in China. Photo: Getty

ANALYSIS

All it took was one day of competition into the Kitty Chiller Olympics for the Australians to cause an international incident.

While claiming the moral high ground is a bridge too far for the Chinese (and they’re no less prone to hyperbole than some of the patriotic elements of our own media), it’s probably not such a leap to suggest that Mack Horton’s comments after winning gold in the 400m freestyle set the tone for Australians being perceived as less-than-graceful winners.

In fact it is a far greater leap to suggest – as Basil Zempilas did as part of the Seven Network’s coverage – that Cate Campbell’s celebration, in which she said her opponent was “dead to me”, was “dignified”.

Two months ago, our chef de mission for the Rio Olympics sent Nick Kyrgios a letter that was just six pages shy of being a novella, asking him to explain his behaviour if he wanted to be picked for the Games and saying she was doing it “to establish a set of behaviours”.

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After Kitty Chiller’s warning to Nick Kyrgios over his behaviour before the Games, the support of Horton smacks of double standards. Photo: Getty

Given the AOC has supported Horton’s post-win statements regarding Sun Yang, you have to ask if our swimmers are being held to a less rigorous standard.

I’m not sure what page declining to shake an opponent’s hand after beating them and then referring to them as a drug cheat to their face was on, but in this context it is difficult to read it any way other than ungracious. 

It certainly took the focus away from Horton’s brilliant swim.

“We don’t know if it is Horton who is silly or it’s the Australian media that is evil, or perhaps Australia just has a different moral standard.”
China's Global Times

Horton said all he needed to say in the pool, and rather than concern himself with his opponent, a celebration of all his hard work and those who supported him on the journey would’ve struck a less discordant note.

However, the Games of the XXXI Olympiad has so many sides it can double back on itself, and while Horton’s golden feat may have been overshadowed by his response to silver medalist Sun, claims of ungraciousness are likely to pale alongside his gold medal becoming a cause célèbre for “clean” athletes the world over. 

There is no argument that doping has blossomed into new prominence at the 2016 Games. This is thanks in no small part to the IOC, who Charles P. Pierce described in Sports Illustrated as a “pack of buffet grazers” who had “so completely bungled its handling of the Russian doping scandal that it managed to make Vladamir Putin seem like the wronged victim of capricious authoritarian regimes”.

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Sun’s ban could arguably be considered to be minor compared to the Russian violations. Photo: Getty

On the scale of the Russians’ alleged systematic doping, Sun’s three-month ban in 2014 for traces of trimetazidine, which he said he was taking for heart palpitations (why so many elite athletes seem to require heart medication is a piece for another time) is likely on the minor side, should you be comfortable taking a half-pregnant approach to these things. 

Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova has tested positive five times, barred from the Games and then quietly reinstated.

Regardless, Horton is now a de-facto spokesman for the Games’ clean athletes (yes, they should all be clean) and has learned that as a professional athlete, there is little upside to being an interesting interview. All it does is make a few million Chinese people hate you. 

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Now that we are seen by China’s Global Times as “a country at the fringes of civilisation” perhaps all that is left for Horton to do is to channel Evel Knievel as he walked from Los Angeles County Jail after serving five months for beating a publisher with a baseball bat, and say that the response from the Chinese “will not serve as a deterrent, and there will be more frontier justice in the future”.

I’m sure Kitty Chiller would be happy to amend her “set of behaviours” to facilitate that.

Craig Little has spent 20 years in advertising, PR and public affairs and is well versed in the dark arts of the media. He can sometimes be heard on 774 ABC and was a member of The Spin team that once explored the murky side of politics and the media on Triple R.

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