When the hammer came down on a container holding a vial of Sun Yang’s blood, it ultimately shattered the career of China’s greatest swimmer.
The three-time Olympic champion was banned on Friday for eight years, likely ending the 28-year-old Sun’s racing days before he could defend his 200m freestyle title at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found the three-time Olympic champion guilty of refusing to cooperate with sample collectors during a visit to his home in September 2018.
The most vivid detail of the evidence — a blood sample rendered useless for testing by a hammer blow — left a clear impression on the judges.
A rare hearing in open court in November last year was reminded of how a security guard instructed by Sun’s mother broke the casing around the vial to ensure that the blood could not be used for anti-doping tests. The swimmer lit the early-hours scene with his mobile phone.
“The athlete failed to establish that he had a compelling justification to destroy his sample collection containers and forego the doping control when, in his opinion, the collection protocol was not in compliance,” the CAS panel of three judges agreed in a unanimous verdict.
China’s most famous swimmer, and one of its biggest stars in any sport, had asked CAS for a public trial.
A 10-hour hearing broadcast on the court’s Web site showed Sun to be evasive at times under questioning that was hampered by severe translation issues between Chinese and English. The CAS panel’s verdict was delayed until all parties got a verified translation.
The 2m-tall Sun, the first Chinese swimmer to win Olympic gold, has long been a polarizing figure in the pool.
Rivals branded him a drug cheat at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and two competitors refused to stand with him on medal podiums at last year’s world championships.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) went to CAS after an International Swimming Federation (FINA) tribunal only warned Sun.
Sun can appeal to the Swiss Supreme Court, but on narrow procedural grounds. His lawyers have already had three federal appeals dismissed on legal process issues.
WADA requested a ban of two to eight years for a second doping conviction.
Sun served a three-month ban in 2014 imposed by Chinese authorities after testing positive for a stimulant that was banned at the time.
Sun never missed a major event while banned in 2014. He added a 200m gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics to the historic 400m and 1,500m titles that he had taken in London four years earlier.
He won a total of 11 golds in five straight world championships from 2011 to last year, at each freestyle distance from 200m to 1,500m.
At three Asian Games from 2010 to 2018, he won nine gold medals.
The court on Friday ruled that Sun can retain the two world titles that he won in South Korea in July last year, while the WADA appeal case against him was pending.
In the CAS hearing, questioning by judges and WADA’s lawyers revealed skepticism that an experienced athlete could claim to be so unfamiliar with the process and the paperwork.
FINA and Sun’s legal team failed in pre-trial efforts to remove WADA’s lead prosecutor from the case.
They said that there was a conflict of interest because of the lawyer’s previous work with FINA, but Sun’s appeal was dismissed by CAS at an earlier hearing.
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