Doping: Mace blow for Sun Yang, suspended eight years

2020-02-28T16:30:20.470Z

The Chinese swimmer was suspended eight years by the Sports Arbitral Tribunal (CAS) for hammering a sample during an unexpected doping control in September 2018.

Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, a sports icon in his country, received an eight-year suspension on Friday, the heaviest penalty he faced before the Arbitration Tribunal for Sport (CAS), for the hammer destruction of a sample during an unexpected doping control dating from September 2018. At 28 years old, Sun Yang, the first Chinese swimmer crowned Olympic champion in 2012, is thus deprived of the Tokyo Games in five months (July 24-August 9). And, beyond that, probably sees his career coming to an end.

Triple Olympic champion (400m and 1500m in 2012, 200m in 2016) and eleven times world champion between 2011 and 2019, the native of Hangzhou, near Shanghai, however quickly announced that he would file an appeal against this sanction "unjust" in his eyes. Proceedings before the Swiss Federal Court are the last card he has. He can ask that his suspension not be executed until a final decision is made, but it will be up to the federal court to decide.

The doping control that has given Sun Yang an eight-year suspension dates back to September 2018 at his Chinese home and was completed in an incredible way, on the destruction of a blood sample with a hammer. In his defense, the swimmer argued that the controllers had not produced "documents proving their identity". What the CAS did not retain.

Second violation

"The jury unanimously determined that the staff responsible for doping control had complied with all regulatory requirements," said its secretary general, Matthieu Reeb, on Friday morning. "Second, the athlete did not establish that he had a valid explanation for destroying his sample and third, it was not for him (her) to decide alone that a doping control should be invalidated and a sample destroyed."

"As a result, Sun Yang committed an anti-doping rule violation by falsifying the control. Considering that this is his second (...) and in the absence of extenuating circumstances, the jury concluded that an eight-year suspension should be imposed ", as of this Friday, added Mr. Reeb. Sun Yang had already been suspended for three months for a positive control of a stimulant (trimetazidine) in 2014. In the greatest secrecy, since it was only made public once its sanction was largely served.

However, the results obtained by the swimmer after the aborted control in September 2018, in particular the world titles of the 200 m and 400 m won in Gwangju (South Korea) last July, are not withdrawn from him, in particular because he has not been tested positive in the meantime. The case of the destroyed sample landed before the CAS after a appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against previous controversial conclusions of the International Swimming Federation (Fina), which had whitewashed Sun Yang for defect in form. The Fina thus undergoes a severe snub.

WADA, which considered that "many points (of the Fina decision) seemed incorrect in the light of the World Anti-Doping Code", immediately welcomed the decision of the CAS, which "confirms these concerns and constitutes a significant result", by the voice of its managing director Olivier Niggli. “Well done, the TAS! Good decision, tweeted South African Chad Le Clos, runner-up to the 200m in 2016, behind Sun. Like many other clean swimmers, I ran against Sun Yang and "lost". Cheaters have no place in sport. ”

The release initially pronounced by Fina had allowed Sun Yang to participate in the 2019 Worlds. It had not been to the taste of the other swimmers: several of them had then ostensibly expressed their distrust in front of his presence. Australian Mack Horton, silver medalist in the 400m - overtaken by Sun -, had refused to climb on the podium in protest. Then the Briton Duncan Scott, bronze over 200m, refused to shake his hand at the end of the ceremonial ceremony. The imposing Chinese (1.98 m) was already in the crosshairs of swimmers since its first suspension. "Sun Yang, he pisses purple", had won the French Camille Lacourt during the Olympics in Rio 2016.