China Is Very Angry At Olympic Gold Medalist Mack Horton (Oh, And The Rest Of Australia Too)

Over the weekend, 20-year-old Olympian – and commerce student! – Mackenzie “Mack” Horton proved that, yes, he is a good swimmer by winning gold at Rio in the 400m freestyle.

The victory earned him a whole lotta new fans in Australia – and, in a fun new twist for Olympic success, an entire nation of nemeses.

See, Horton relegated China’s Sun Yang to second place. As Mashable reports, the Aussie did his darnedest to mess with Yang’s head in the days before the race, telling reporters in the training pool, “I don’t have time for drug cheats.”

(Yang scored a three-month doping ban from competition in 2014.)

It’s undeniable that, following his victory, Horton has received a lot of love from Australians newly aware of the bespectacled swimmer, grateful for his contribution to our medal tally thus far (three gold and three bronze).

Buuuuuut, patriotic Chinese Tweeters are none too pleased that he made the denigrating comments about Yang on his way to first place.

(Searching for responses to Mack on Twitter returns an autocomplete of “@_mackhorton shame on you”, which is an ominous sign.)

#Rio2016 @_mackhorton #apologizetosunyang Though you won the game, you're totally a loser. pic.twitter.com/NYX8kwmZYu

— Guo Lu (@GuoLu_Sophia) August 7, 2016

And so on.

It’s not just Twitter that’s angry, either. (Besides, Twitter is always angry.)

A columnist in China’s Global Times (which is known as a mouthpiece for the nation's communist party) said, “actually we think Australia should feel embarrassed with Horton’s remark.”

The rest of us copped a serve too: “In many serious essays written by Westerners, Australia is mentioned as a country at the fringes of civilisation. In some cases, they refer to the country’s early history as Britain’s offshore prison. This suggests that no one should be surprised at uncivilised acts emanating from the country.”

Though the Chinese swim team issued a statement calling Horton’s now infamous slam a “malicious personal attack”, the Australian Olympic Committee defended the swimmer, saying “Mack is entitled to express his point of view”.

Horton will meet Yang back in the pool on Sunday, for the 1,500m freestyle. Literally cancel all your plans in a six-hour radius around the event, because you’re gonna want to watch the fallout on Twitter.

Photo: Twitter.