South Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan has claimed he was offered lucrative sponsorship contracts and a high-profile role at a university in Seoul by a Government official in return for not competing at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Park, the Beijing 2008 400 metres freestyle gold medallist, was only cleared to take part at Rio 2016 a month before the Games following a successful appeal against a Korean Olympic Committee ruling forbidding athletes from representing any national team for three years after a doping suspension.
The 27-year-old, one of South Korea’s household sporting names, was banned in 2014 after testing positive for the anabolic steroid testosterone and served an 18-month ban.
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