SYDNEY – Olympic swimmer Eamon Sullivan has backed his Australian teammates Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk, saying he saw “nothing wrong” with them posing with guns in images posted on social networking sites.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) said Saturday that D’Arcy and Monk will be sent home from the London Games as soon as their swimming events are completed as punishment for the firearm photo controversy.

But Sullivan said he did not have a problem with the photos, adding that in 2007 Swimming Australia took the swim team to a rifle range in Canberra as part of a bonding session.

“We went to a gun range and had a bit of fun, a bit of a bonding session,” he told Channel Nine Sunday.

“Nothing wrong with it then, so I don’t see the difference now.”
D’Arcy and Monk, both 24, have apologized for posting pictures online of themselves with high-powered weapons in a US gun shop, saying it was just “a bit of fun”.

Sullivan agreed saying: “Shooting is an Olympic sport and shooters don’t get into trouble for posing in their speedos.”

The Australian Olympic Committee said the Canberra gun range visit was a Swimming Australia initiative.

“It had nothing to do with the AOC. It was 2007, they were not members of any Olympic Team at that time,” an AOC spokesman said in a statement to the media.

The young swimmers have been sanctioned by the AOC after its team executive ruled their conduct had brought themselves into disrepute. — AFP