146 Chinese athletes nominated for CCTV Sports Awards, but not Sun Yang

Ouch, see Xinhua

Double Olympic champion swimmer Sun Yang was excluded from the voting for China’s top athlete despite a successful record which includes three world championships titles.

Sun isn’t on a list of 146 candidates selected on Thursday to run for the prestigious CCTV Sports Awards. The organizers, China Central Television, announced that they “valued professionalism over athletic performance”.

Sun Yang getting a hug after the BCN2013 men's 400 free

Sun, who claimed men’s 400m, 800m and 1,500m freestyle world titles and went on to bag five gold medals in the National Games, was caught driving without a license in a car accident in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province early this month.

Apart from a seven-day detention and a fine of 2,000 yuan (about 328 U.S. dollars) by Hangzhou police, he has also been suspended from all the competitions and national team’s training and commercial activities.

“Sun Yang is an outstanding athlete but he failed to behave professionally outside the swimming pool,” said CCTV sports chief Jiang Heping.

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