The World Anti-Doping Agency’s appeal against FINA‘s decision not to sanction triple Olympic champion Sun Yang over his now-infamous blood vial-smashing incident will be heard in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in September, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
CAS confirmed to SwimSwam in March that the anti-doping organization had indeed filed an appeal, but declined to provide any further details, such as when the appeal hearing will take place, citing the process’ confidentiality. Sun, 27, is reportedly facing a lifetime ban should WADA successfully appeal the decision.
FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu, who supports the doping panel’s ruling, told AFP about the upcoming hearing date.
“But the situation is very simple — we have a decision from the FINA doping panel, which is totally independent,” he said. “According to the rules WADA can appeal — and they did so — and CAS is going to hold a hearing sometime in September so we wait to see what will happen.”
In the hearing, FINA officially sought for a harsher sanction for Sun, but the doping panel sided with the athlete, agreeing that there wasn’t evidence that the doping sample collector provided proper credentials.
The CAS’ currently public schedule run through late August. While Sun is allowed to compete while the appeal is being heard, if the CAS were to overturn the doping panel’s decision, stripping Sun’s World Championship results would be among the possible recourse.
The world record holder in the men’s 1500 free nearly missed an out-of-competition doping test on September 4, 2018. He made the testers wait outside of his home for almost an hour, and then challenged whether the officials were genuine testers from the International Doping Tests and Management lab.
Reports alleging that Sun’s mother, after he broke a number of out-of-competition drug testing protocols, ordered security guards to smash a vial of his blood taken in a nearby clubhouse, according to witnesses. Dr. Ba Zhen, who supports Sun (and who like Sun has a history with doping), reportedly contacted Dr. Han Zhaoqi, the head of the Zhejiang Anti-Doping Center. Han told FINA that the nurse present didn’t have the necessary paperwork, and at a January 3rd hearing, the FINA panel ruled in Sun’s favor, stating that they would “never know” what had happened.
WADA, however, had been claimed to be ‘furious’ over the ruling. They had 21 days following “the last day on which any other party in the case could have appealed” or 21 days “after WADA’s receipt of the complete file relating to the decision” to file the appeal case.
Sun’s lawyer Zhang Qihuai issued a statement to Xinhua News following The Sunday Times’ initial report, threatening to sue over defamation: “We reserve the right to file a lawsuit against the relevant international media which reports the incident,” the statement read. It also accused The Times of reporting the news with a “malign intention” and “dubious motives,” and “infringing upon Sun’s privacy and reputation.” Shortly thereafter, the Chinese Swimming Federation published a statement of support for Sun, backing the defamation claims.
Following the intense public backlash to FINA’s decision, the organization issued a statement saying it “would not consider further speculation or hearsay on the matter.”
Over the weekend, the Daily Telegraph obtained and published the full 59-page report detailing the incident, which you can read more about here.
this guy is the worst offender. He needs the permanent boot.
Agree. The guy should have been banned for life just for intentionally kicking women swimmers in the head and cursing at them in the warm-up pool in Kazan in 2015, let alone for the doping violations.
I don’t know why there is controversy. Did the inspector presented proper certification and authorization or not? If not, then it is their fault and athlete has every right to reject it. And the FINA panel, an independent commission clearly sided with Sun unanimously. It is sickening to see the double standard and totally biased reporting and comments here.
The facts are that paperwork was presented and a sample was given. The whole area of drug testing is complex. Sun Yang, his mum and his doctor can’t then become self-appointed experts and decide themselves that there was some ‘defect’ in the paperwork and destroy the sample Common sense says you have to have an independent body determine whether all the legal requirements were followed.
if the police tried to arrest me I cannot resist on the grounds that I believe they don’t have the power to do so. It’s for the Courts to decide whether they acted lawfully or not. If sun Yang or any other athlete is allowed to give the testers the runaround, destroy samples etc. just because they thought the paperwork wasn’t in order, then the whole drug testing regime becomes farcical.
Except if police don’t have proper paperwork for a search or an arrest you shouldn’t comply with them at all
Great point!
But the whole point here is that paperwork was produced. An individual cannot take it upon himself or herself to decide whether all the legal technicalities were followed. That’s why you have Courts and other independent bodies.
Why does the process work so slowly? This should be ruled on before Worlds.
Same as any court, there’s a limited amount of court space and judges, so the only fair way to do it is in the order they were issued. Summer is busy because it’s when lots of big sporting events are held.
The IOC and national Olympic committees could always throw more cash at CAS, but there are only so many people with the qualifications and experience to be a CAS judge.
If you think CAS is bad, you should see the waiting list for an appellate court in New York or England.
This guys asterisks have asterisks
The Sunday Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who personally backs their anti-doping work led by David Walsh.
Defamation claims attract huge fees and Walsh has licence to spend whatever it takes to defend them. Sun will need to be very careful, he’s a relatively wealthy man but Murdoch will merrily run up legal fees into eight figures and if Sun loses, he’ll be paying them.
Interesting . UK Govt is currently in legal limbo re publishing leaked/ hacked documents . On one hand they are stating Assange should be extricated to a hostile 3rd party yet when Darragh’s emails are released they are saying publishing is good .& also hunting down the leaker . Regarding protected judicial procedings they have jailed Tommy Robinson for photographing convicted pedophiles because they are part of another judicial case .on grooming gangs .
I really don’t know how they are going to rule on publishing / asserting guilt in this closed FINA hearing . So far , the fact is there was not enough evidence presented to the doping anel . I think this would be the case… Read more »
So does he still get to swim at world champs?
Probably like efimova was in Rio
How is it like Efimova? Did you just throw a famous name in?
Are you kidding bro
She was taking it before World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) added meldonium to its list of banned substances. The ban took place January 1, 2016 and she was proven negligent and not intentionally cheating.
A better comparison to Sun Yang would be Lance Armstrong.
My mans shouldn’t be at worlds like if you agree