The record of Chinese athlete Sun Yang, who was suspended for doping, was broken during the swimming competition in Paris on Saturday.
Bobby Finke of the US defeated Sun’s 12-year-old mark in the 1500-meter freestyle.
Finke, who was 24 years old at that time, easily won his second Olympic gold medal after setting a new world record in the event with a time of 14:30.67.
His victory was the first gold medal won by an American male athlete in an individual event during the Paris Olympics.
Finke, who was leading by about 300 meters at that time, never looked back and maintained his pace throughout the competition.
He said he wanted to make the other swimmers feel as if they were chasing him.
After the other swimmers started catching up to him, he started to worry a little bit.
However, he maintained his composure and maintained his pace to win the gold medal. He also noted that he didn’t target the world record at that time.
Sun was not able to participate in the Paris Olympics due to his doping suspension, which was not ending until May.
He was suspended in 2020 after he broke the vial of blood during a test. The World Anti-Doping Agency had also banned him for eight years.
Although he was initially banned for three months for a different doping offense in 2014, he was eventually reduced to a four-year suspension by the Court of Arbitration of Sport.
Despite his reduced sentence, Sun still maintains that he is innocent of the events that occurred in 2018.
If he wants to regain his Olympic record in the 1500 meters, Sun would be 36 years old in 2028 when the event will be held in Los Angeles.
In an interview following his doping ban’s end, he said he was hoping to be back in the starting block soon.
The Chinese swimming team was placed in the spotlight before the Olympic Games started due to a major doping scandal.
It was revealed that 23 of the country’s athletes had failed a drug test due to the use of a heart medication known as Trimetazidine.
After the WADA accepted the explanation provided by Chinese authorities, the swimmers were not sanctioned.
They blamed the contaminated food for their positive tests. Chinese officials also conducted tests on Australian beef in an attempt to find out how two of the nation’s swimmers came up positive.
In October 2022, China informed the WADA that two swimmers, He Junyi and Tang Muhan, had consumed burgers contaminated with traces of metandienone.
Both of them tested positive for the banned steroid. The meat industry of Australia responded to the allegations, saying that metandienone is not used in the production of beef and has no place in veterinary medicine.