DUNCAN SCOTT insisted that the storm blown up by his row with Chinese rival Sun Yang won’t affect his performances in the pool after he booked his place in today’s 200 metres individual medley final at the World Championships in Gwangju.
The 22-year-old received both shows of support from colleagues and death threats on social media for snubbing Sun on the podium, following Tuesday’s 200m freestyle final in which the Scot won bronze and Sun won gold. The Olympic champion has served a ban for drugs use and will face a case against him later this year, brought by the World Anti-Doping Agency, for alleged test violations.
Scott, who qualified sixth-fastest by coming second in yesterday’s 200m individual medley semi-final in 1:57.73, said his mind was focused on becoming a champion rather than on the podium controversy.
He said: “I can’t say during the race I was thinking about it. There are plenty of things on my mind during the race. It was more how about how I was going to catch those guys.”
Former Olympic champion Greg Rutherford has backed the Scot and blasted swimming’s world governing body FINA for issuing warning letters to both Scott and Sun.
“I’m really disappointed with FINA because to give Duncan a warning letter is ridiculous,” the long jump star said. “I think what Duncan did was the right thing. Each athlete should be allowed to have their own form of protest, and we need more athletes to stand up and say letting drugs cheats back in is not the right thing.
“We’re in a situation where everyone on a global scale will say drugs are bad and you’ve got somebody prepared to take a stand, only for the major governing bodies to not support him. We need to see more athletes taking a stand and when that happens I think the governing bodies will realise that maybe bringing drugs cheats back is not for the good of the sport.”
Scott opted to ease his schedule yesterday by pulling out of the 100m freestyle semis to throw all his energies into the medley.
“I’ve made it through to the final so that’s job done. Time-wise, that won’t be good enough in the final,” Scott said. “It won’t cut it at all. There are a few things I need to improve on before then so I’ll need to rest up and see what I did there and better it.”
Adam Peaty earned his seventh world championship title by claiming his third successive gold in the 50m breaststroke. The Englishman, 24, was just outside his world record in clocking 26.06 seconds in the final. It gave him a hat-trick of 50-100m golds and he also added a bronze by linking up with Georgia Davies, James Guy and Freya Anderson to come third in the mixed 4x100 medley relay with Australia pipping the USA to gold.
“I’ve done the triple-double, which is what I came to do,” Peaty said. “I’ve completed everything I wanted to do. I put together a pretty perfect race and I was only just off my world record.”
In the men's 200m butterfly, 19-year-old Hungary's Kristof Milak took gold in a time of 1:50.73 that smashed the previous world record set by Michael Phelps in 2009.
Davies qualified for today’s women’s 50m backstroke final while fellow Britons Laura Stephens and Alys Thomas both reached the final of the women's 200m butterfly.
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