The gloves are off in one of swimming’s most bitter rivalries, with Australia’s Mack Horton protesting controversial Chinese star Sun Yang’s 400m freestyle victory at the world titles in South Korea. Sun pipped Olympic champion Horton by 0.73 of a second to claim his fourth-straight 400m freestyle world title at Sunday’s opening night of the eight-day championships. Sun celebrated wildly after the 400m win, splashing water and holding four fingers up to indicate his streak. Horton could at least take solace from his silver medal finish at a world titles that, by rights, he shouldn’t be contesting. He failed to qualify for an individual event at last month’s world titles trials but was selected for the championships thanks to head coach Jacco Verhaeren’s discretionary powers.

Source: The Guardian July 21, 2019 21:45 UTC