Sun Yang’s clash with doping officials was not his first

Swimming’s top officials had already been warned about Sun Yang’s “rude, abrasive and uncooperative” conduct a year before he used a hammer to destroy his own blood samples.

• CLOSE CALL: How Yang escaped another ban

• RELEASE: Why FINA must come clean

Sun Yang’s explosive confrontation with doping officials late last year wasn’t the first time the hot-tempered Chinese swimmer has been reported about his aggressive behaviour while being asked to submit to a random drug test.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that swimming’s top officials had already been warned about Sun’s conduct almost 12 months prior to the latest shocking incident where he used a hammer to destroy his own samples.

Swimmers around the world are now demanding an explanation as to how the controversial multiple world and Olympic champion — who has already served one suspension for doping — was let off with nothing more than a caution after the sport’s world governing body FINA believed the case against him was “beyond any doubt”.

Well-placed sources have told The Daily Telegraph that Sun has had at least one run-in with doping officers before, and he used the same questionable tactics to escape what would almost certainly have been a career-ending ban.

Sun’s career is rapidly falling apart around him.

In late 2017, independent doping officers reported Sun for being “extremely rude, abrasive and uncooperative” when he was ordered to undertake an out-of-competition test in his homeland.

The senior man in charge of that procedure, a highly experienced doping officer from western Europe, was so alarmed at Sun’s behaviour that he wrote in a supplementary report that the intimidating two-metre tall Sun had been unduly difficult during the entire testing procedure and was particularly abrupt with a Chinese female assistant, who he was training at the time to become a senior officer.

Sun hit back with his own complaint, writing on the doping control form that he believed the female assistant lacked the proper credentials and authority to carry out her job, although he still agreed to provide the required blood and urine samples.

The Daily Telegraph now understands that the same woman, who has graduated to a fully certified doping officer, was the assigned officer in charge of the most recent sample mission where Sun went into meltdown.

This time, Sun ignored the officer in charge so did not provide a urine sample and although he did have his blood taken, he later removed the vials from their sealed container and smashed them with a tool.

Could Sun be saddled with a career-ending suspension?

After reviewing the incident, FINA charged Sun with two serious anti-doping offences, the first for refusing to supply a sample and the second for tampering with a sample, and referred the case to a three-man doping panel to adjudicate.

The panel spent 13 hours interviewing witness and more than six weeks finalising its report before finding Sun innocent on both charges.

However, the panel stated that the verdict was a “close run thing,” prompting questions from swimmers around the world about how Sun got away with violently destroying a sample when so many other athletes have been suspended for seemingly lesser actions, such as returning home too late for a random test or from taking cough and cold medication.

The final report on the case has been sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has three weeks to decide whether to appeal the verdict to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, so may not be finished yet, but many questions remain unanswered in the meantime.

Although the report has not been released publicly, The Daily Telegraph has already revealed that Sun escaped punishment partly because of a technicality over paperwork.

Using a similar line of complaint that he had tried unsuccessfully a year earlier, Sun insisted that the doping officer and her two assistants should each have had separate letters of authority, even though the female officer in charge produced a generic letter from FINA permitting her and her two assistants to carry out their duties.

Sun has multiple Olympic gold medals. Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images.

Now, it has emerged that Sun also escaped penalty because he apparently did not understand that the act of destroying his blood samples would be treated as an offence.

As astonishing as that is to believe if commonsense is applied, that is understood to be one of loopholes that saved him.

The female officer, who formally requested that her identity be kept secret even from the doping panel, testified that she repeatedly explained to Sun that if he destroyed the sealed blood samples he could be committing an anti-doping violation.

But Sun said he did not understand exactly what she meant so thought destroying the samples was allowed.

And the doping panel sided with him, saying the woman should have made it crystal clear that destroying the samples “would be” treated as an anti-doping violation rather “could be”.

Even before he smashed the samples, the “horrified” female doping officer pleaded with Sun not to destroy them.

Although he had already agreed to give blood and the nurse who carried out the procedure was commended by the doping panel for doing a good job, Sun later argued that the nurse shouldn’t have taken the sample because she did not have proof she was “practising”, only that she was “qualified”.

Yang has been hit with allegations of more misconduct. Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images.

The doping officer told Sun he was wrong and suggested that the collected blood samples should be sent to the anti-doping laboratory in Beijing and preserved while the dispute over the nurse’s credentials were checked first.

But Sun rejected her request and the samples were destroyed.

Sun also refused to allow the male chaperone to witness him urinating, which is a strict part of doping protocols so athletes can’t substitute someone else’s urine.

Sun claimed the male assistant had been taking “fan” photos, an accusation he denied. Nevertheless, he agreed to delete all the photos on his phone to appease Sun, who still refused to allow him to act as a chaperone, so no urine sample was provided.

It’s already one of the most extraordinary doping cases ever heard and poses a series of sticky problems for WADA because of the precedent it may set, all at a time when athletes and the public are demanding officials start taking a harder, commonsense line to tackling doping in sport.

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Originally published as Sun Yang’s clash with doping officials was not his first