Currently, the Australian Swimming Olympic Trials are taking place in Adelaide. Rio Olympics men's 400m freestyle winner, Australian ace Mark Horton planted a big heel on his main event, he only swam 3 minutes 43.92 seconds in the final of the trials, ranking third, missing the Tokyo Olympics. Previously, because of the right and wrong between him and China's Sun Yang, people were looking forward to the pair of top 400 meters in the swimming world to be able to compete in the pool of the Tokyo Olympic Games, but in the case that the results of Sun Yang's hearing had not yet been released, Horton did not expect to be able to stand up first. It is worth mentioning that in the subsequent 200-meter freestyle, Horton ranked sixth and lost this Olympic qualification. Later, Horton will also compete in the 800m freestyle, in addition to his hopes of being shortlisted for the 4X200m freestyle relay team lineup...
After the game, Horton was unhappy with his performance, believing that he had not been able to find the rhythm of breathing and it was difficult to speed up during the sprint, which made him lose to Winnington and McLaughlin, who would qualify for Australia at the Tokyo Olympics in this project, and Horton lost the opportunity to defend his title early. However, Winnington still gave Horton a high evaluation after the game, "Mark left me here five years ago for a second, his performance in Rio was quite shocking, there is no doubt that he is a very good athlete and always a good swimmer." ”
Horton's exit means that the 400-meter peak showdown between him and Sun Yang was aborted in advance, and at the Rio Olympics, Horton became famous in a battle, winning the championship with a time of 3 minutes 41.55 seconds, while Sun Yang could only be the runner-up, but it was from then on that that the two set off a protracted battle in the 400-meter event, but Sun Yang has always been able to overpower Horton. At the 2017 World Championships in Budapest and the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, sun Yang won the gold medal.
However, due to Sun Yang's suspected "violent resistance to prosecution" in 2018, after Sun Yang won the World Championships in Gwangju, Horton, who was the runner-up, actually refused to take the podium, which was similar to a trick, which also made Sun Yang very angry when he left the field and roared at Horton. Afterwards, both were warned by FINA, but this also made swimmers look forward to the competition between the two.
Unexpectedly, Sun Yang was banned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for eight years in 2020 for suspected "violent resistance", although Horton did not make any radical remarks at that time, but when Sun Yang formally appealed to the Swiss Federal High Court and got the opportunity to "overturn the case and retry", Horton said that if Sun Yang really lifted the ban and returned, he would protest to the end.
Unexpectedly, the Sun Yang case has not yet been solved, but Horton can't stand it first. In addition to not being able to defend the Olympic gold medal in the 400m freestyle, he almost did not even make it to the final of the selection in the 200m freestyle. As the standing main force of the Australian men's swimming relay event, the individual main event has been seriously frustrated one after another, can such a performance still represent Australia in the Olympic Games?