CHINA’S Sun Yang defended his men’s 400 meters freestyle title at the world championships in Kazan, Russia, on Sunday, the first of a possible four-gold sweep for the 23-year-old.

    Sun, the five-time world champion, clocked 3 minutes 42.58 seconds to take gold as the Chinese powerhouse overtook Britain’s James Guy in the closing stages.

    Sun is coming back following a three-month doping ban last year after testing positive for a banned stimulant.

    Guy was under world-record pace through the first half of the race, but Sun pulled slightly ahead approaching the 350-meter wall. Sun built a bigger lead over the final lap to clinch the victory. He sat on the lane line and clenched both fists in celebration.

    Guy won silver in 3:43.75 and Ryan Cochrane of Canada took the bronze in 3:44.59.

    This is the first of four individual events Sun, the world 1,500 freestyle record holder, will race in Kazan as well as the 200, 800 and the mile distance.

    Having won the 400 and 1,500 freestyle Olympic titles at the 2012 London Olympic Games, Sun continued his domination of the endurance events by winning the 400, 800 and 1,500 world titles in Barcelona two years ago.

    The 23-year-old used his winner’s press conference to go on the attack at the media gathered in Kazan, especially after Ye Shiwen’s 200m and 400m individual medley wins at the London Olympics attracted huge suspicion.

    “For the doping cases, I don’t know why the media paid so much attention to this,” he said.

    “The world media seems to think that whenever the Chinese get a good result, we are doping.

    “We are training and working hard, just like athletes in countries all over the world.

    “Athletes have been caught doping in other countries, like Australia, but not much is made of that and I think it’s disrespectful to China.

    “As athletes, we are working very hard and of course, there are times when we get injured and sometimes we take things we don’t know about and it’s a genuine mistake,” he said.

    Sun also used the spotlight to praise the Chinese capital for winning the right to host the Winter Games.

    “I want to congratulate my country and Beijing winning the 2022 Winter Olympic Games and I want to use my victory to promote that,” said Sun.

    (SD-Agencies)