Dreams shattered
OLYMPIC GAMES Expectant Aussies watch biggest hopes fade away Chinese swimmer’s positive drug test creating waves of disapproval
IT was supposed to be Australia’s day; the day our topranked athletes stepped up and knocked the Olympics over the fence for six.
Instead we were noballed, Bodylined, shirtfronted and monkeygripped.
Rarely in Australia’s long and proud Olympic history have our hopes turned to dust so dramatically and so quickly.
We started the day riding the wave of euphoria created by 18 year-old Kyle Chalmers with his sensational win in the 100m freestyle final, and ended it stunned and bewildered like mullet washed up on the sand.
How could wrong so fast?
The swim team got on a specially chartered $300,000 flight for Rio with five world number ones strapping themselves into their extended leg-room seats.
Add in slalom canoe ace Jess Fox and the men’s quad rowing crew that had not lost a race this year, and that makes seven.
As of end of competition Friday, only one – Cate Campbell in the 50m freestyle – is still in the running for an individual gold medal.
Fox led early in the final it all go so AUSTRALIAN breaststroker Taylor McKeown has slammed the acceptance of drug cheats at the Olympics as it emerged Chinese swimmer Chen Xinyi was appealing against a positive drugs test returned in Rio.
Although the positive test of her event, only to lose two penalty points following a video review of her run. She was then relegated from silver to bronze when Spain’s Mailen Chourrant top scored.
The quad finished second behind Germany.
But if things were tough on the rowing course, at the pool they were even worse.
It was almost inconceivable that Cate Campbell wouldn’t win gold in the 100m freestyle and if for some reason she slipped to silver, it would surely be her reigning world champion sister Bronte who took top step on the podium. Think again. No medal for them.
Still, at least they made the final, unlike Cam McEvoy and 100m and 200m backstroke world champion Emily Seebohm. Seebohm, who finished second last in the 100m final, failed to make the final of the 200m event after finishing 12th out of 16 in Friday’s semi-finals.
That was after McEvoy failed to make the final of the 50m freestyle and Taylor McKeown, fastest qualifier for the 200m breaststroke final, faded to fifth after leading at the halfway mark.
The saving grace was 100m and 200m backstroke world champ Mitch Larkin who hung on for a silver medal in the 200m. has yet to be confirmed, Chen was allegedly appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over a failed test held last Sunday when she placed fourth in the 100m butterfly final.
CAS convened a special hearing in Rio but there were suggestions its website had been hacked making it unable to publish a result of the hearing that would allow Chen to line up today in the 50m freestyle heats.
The positive test is likely to fuel anger on the pool deck with clean swimmers lining up to speak out against dopers.
McKeown was disgusted she had to race convicted drug cheat Yuliya Efimova of Russia in the 200m breaststroke final.
“It’s disappointing she is here and disappointing she has got a medal in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke now because I feel like it’s positive reinforcement for bad behaviour which you don’t agree with so it’s a real shame,” said McKeown, who finished fifth in the final.
If proven correct, Chen would be the first Chinese athlete to test positive at an Olympic Games since 1992.