HANGZHOU, China, Jan. 22 -- Olympic swimming champion Sun Yang was shut out of a top 10 athletes voting by the southeast Chinese province of Zhejiang on Thursday.

Sun missed out on the balloting for the second straight year for "well-known reasons", said Zhao Xiaoxiang, deputy sports director of Sun's birth province, adding those candidates for awards are the "pride and examples of Zhejiang sports".

Sun, who holds the 1,500-meter freestyle world record, served a three-month doping ban earlier this year after testing positive for the banned stimulant trimetazidine on May 17.

Sun wasn't listed for the top 10 voting or other awards for Zhejiang-born athletes last year as he had a public falling out with his longtime coach and was briefly jailed after being caught driving without a licence.

In athletic results alone, Sun is better than any of 20 candidates who include women's swimmer Ye Shiwen and ultra-marathon runner Chen Pengbin, having won three gold medals in the 2014 Asian Games.

The winners of sporting awards "not only excel in sports but also have positive energy", said Zhao.