Olympic swimmer Sun Yang looks set to paddling his way through a different career after announcing that he will "officially join Handing Yuyou Media Group," China Daily reported.
The 24-year-old Olympian revealed his foray into the entertainment industry through a video shown at a media conference in Zhejiang Province. Sun was in the U.S. training for the Rio Olympic Games at the time of the press con.
"Sun Yang is hopeful to win gold medals for the Chinese delegation in Rio Olympics," the general manager for Handing Yuyou Media Group was quoted as saying by China Daily. "We're not going to overcommercialize him. We promise that Sun will only attend commercial activities on the condition that he has a good rest and training."
Meanwhile, Sun's coach Zhang Yadong said on Weibo that the swimmer is not scheduled to appear in any TV shows before the Olympic Games.
Separately, Handing Yuyou Media revealed that a contract is already on the table between Sun and the entertainment group.
"Handing Yuyou Media Group . . . announced that they have signed a contract with Olympic champion Sun in early April, and Sun has [become] their first contracted entertainer for Reality TV Show," China Daily wrote.
Some fans, however, are distasteful of the idea of Sun entering the showbiz industry. A poll by Sina.com revealed that 33.9 percent of survey respondents are "against Sun to be a contracted entertainer," while 11.8 percent "thought he was crazy," China Daily added.
Sun is recognized as the first Chinese swimmer to have won a gold medal at the Olympics. The star athlete represented his country at the 2008 Summer Olympics hosted by China.
In 2011, Sun broke records for the 1,500m freestyle men's division. He scored another gold medal for the men's 400m freestyle at the 2012 Olympics held in London.