Swimming Australia website under 'cyber attack'

Australian swimmer Mack Horton’s comments about Chinese rival Sun Yang could’ve been the catalyst for a suspected cyber attack on Swimming Australia’s website.

Horton labelled Sun Yang a ‘drug cheat’ and Fairfax media is reporting the incidents may be linked.

Those trying to access Swimming Australia website overnight, were greeted with the brief screen message: "Checking your browser before accessing swimming.org.au."

The text "DDoS [Distributed Denial of Service] protection by CloudFlare" was also displayed.

According to the ABC  the Swimming Australia site was "operating in an 'under attack' mode".

Swimming Australia is using software to check every browser accessing the page to ensure they were legitimate.

The attack was understood to have been referred to government officials for investigation, the ABC said.