King of Sports 190 The Art Of Apologizing

With 4 gold and 2 bronze medals from the World Championships, he overpowered world famous swimmers such as Phelps and Lochte and became the MVP for the 2011 FINA World Championships.

Returning to the locker room after receiving his awards, Tang Yan couldn't escape Fu Yuanhui's grasp and was forced through another round of torture, after hundreds of poses and photos he was eventually let go.

All the major media outlets reported on Tang Yan's 1500m victory and his 4x100m medley comeback.

In fact, a lot of the outlets had prepared two manuscripts before the 1500m final. One if Sun Yang won gold and Tang Yan won silver. The other for if Tang Yan won gold and Sun Yang won silver, but what they hadn't predicted was the 4x100m medley results so they had to edit and adjust their posts. 

There were a lot of reports, but the report from China Daily Sports was what really attracted heated discussions from netizens.

With the rapid development of tech, newspapers were becoming a lagging medium but most newspaper agencies were still resistant to make the move online preferring to print despite their audience size shrinking as people found new ways to get their news.

The source of all the commotion on Weibo came from an ordinary salaryman named Zhang Bai. Zhang Bai sat through a cramped subway for more than two hours every day commuting from home to work. Thanks to his starting station, he could get a seat before the train really filled up, but with a two hour journey he always had to find ways to entertain himself.

He loved sports and had a soft spot for sports magazines, which is how reading China Daily Sports became his go to.

When he saw the newspaper headline, the first sentence he said with a smile on his lips was "Tang Yan again." He scanned the relevant report with a glance.

What caught his eye was at the end of the article, it elaborated the view that there was no stimulant in the world that would allow a swimmer to break the 1500 meters world record by 5 seconds.

Similarly it was even more impossible for the stimulant to, after helping the swimmer win the 1500-meter freestyle help them pull off such a miraculous comeback like the one Tang Yan had just done. And if there was, the swimmer certainly wouldn't be okay after.

At the end of the article, it even publicly asked the Australian team for an official apology for the previous accusation incident.

It was a very clear point. It was what many wanted to say but they had no platform to stand on.

But China Daily Sports actually said it for them.

China Daily Sports was a subsidy of China Daily which was owned by the Publicity Department of the government. 

So for them to say that on such a public platform and ask the Australian team to apologize. It was like throwing an uncooked grenade at Australia.

After reading the report, Zhang Bai was full of excitement, he logged onto Weibo and posted a picture of the article online to his personal Weibo account.

With Tang Yan already trending on Weibo, the post soon picked up steam as many liked and commented on it.

It rose quickly and soon hit the top of Weibo's trending list.

This time, even if the Australian team didn't want to make a statement, they were forced to.

But what surprised everyone was that it wasn't an official from the Australian team who came forward to apologize, but Magnussen himself. 

On his personal social media, Magnussen published an apology: 

"I want to apologize to everyone for any misunderstandings they may have over me. Since the 2011 Shanghai World Championships started, I've suffered a lot of verbal abuse. I want to admit my part in that. Yes, during the 50m qualifiers, I had some words for Tang Yan that weren't so friendly before the match, but believe me, it was just an attempt to interfere with Tang Yan's psyche, nothing truly ill willed or personal but it seems many misunderstood and over time my words have been seemingly twisted.

But I assure you I meant no disrespect to Tang Yan or the Chinese Team and if they mistook it for that, I'm sorry that you felt that way, I apologize for the misunderstanding."

Magnussen's elder brother, Daniel Magnussen, was first to support his younger brother on social media saying: "Well done for being mature and taking ownership"

His teammates and many Australian stars soon joined in, speaking about how proud they were of him for his mature approach.

It was a clear attempt to end the situation by offering up Magnussen as a scapegoat and even then they attempted to shirk all responsibility with Magnussen boiling it all down to a misunderstanding.

After this apology came out, it was quickly unanimously rejected by the netizens. Many netizens even threatened to boycott all Australian products.

After Tang Yan became famous, there were many people who paid attention and supported him.

The Chinese swimming team held a press conference the day after the World Championships ended. And as expected a reporter asked Tang Yan about the apology statement.

It was a challenging question, so Tang Yan took a second to ponder before answering.

"The drug test for swimmers is the most rigorous of all sports and now there is a rule to retest urine samples every 3 years. Time will tell all. As for the so-called apology, just look at it. He's like a kid throwing a tantrum whilst apologising, trying to take credit for apologising after being forced to, all the while trying to avoid all responsibility. But we have to be open-minded, after all, we are all adults, why do we need to be serious when dealing with kids?"

At the end, he added domineeringly: "In the 2012 London Olympics, I welcome all Australian swimmers to challenge me. You can use all the means you know. I'm looking forward to your challenge." 

Chapter end