Aussie swimmer Shayna Jack plans return to racing after appeal against ban reduction is dismissed

Shayna Jack’s saga has raised serious questions about the way anti-doping cases are dealt with. Now she’s had a big win in court, her teammates are speaking out.

Shayna jack is set to get back in the pool.

Aussie swimmer Shayna Jack has declared her worst nightmare is finally over after an appeal against her early return to the sport was thrown out almost two and a half years after she landed in hot water for something she says she never did.

The Queenslander - who cruelly missed out on her chance to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics because her reduced ban didn’t kick in quick enough for her to qualify for the Australian team - said she was overwhelmed that the drawn out saga dating back to before the 2019 world championships was finally over.

“After a 2 year and 3 month battle, I have finally received my final decision that my appeal case has been dismissed by the Court of Arbitration,” she wrote, alongside a picture of her about to dive into a pool.

“I am now free to do what I love with no restrictions and am so overwhelmed with joy. I am now going to take some time to myself to cherish this moment and reflect on what I have endured. The nightmare is finally over.”

Jack was initially given a four-year ban after she tested positive to the banned anabolic agent ligandrol at an Australian team training camp before the 2019 world championships.

She denied knowingly taking the banned substance and said she had no idea how it got into her system, and in 2020, she won an appeal to halve her suspension to two years.

Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) both appealed against that reduction.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has yet to formally release its full judgment for dismissing the appeal, but in a brief statement, the Swiss-based body said the three-member panel disagreed with the reasoning in the decision to reduce her ban from four years.

Shayna Jack is delighted to be able to resume her swimming career.

However, the majority agreed that she was entitled to a two-year reduction because “on balance …. she did not intentionally or recklessly consume the prohibited substance.”

SIA chief executive David Sharpe said in a statement that the matter was now closed.

“Sport Integrity Australia’s decision to appeal the original ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport was based on the need for clarity in the application of key anti-doping legal principles,” he said.

The verdict means Jack can now immediately resume racing after she was allowed to return to training in late June.

“Thank you to everyone who has stood by me, supported me and help me overcome this challenge,” she said.

“I will speak more in the future, now is not the time …. But watch this space, it’s only the beginning.”

Jack was in some pretty esteemed company in 2018.

Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus was pleased Jack could now return to the pool.

“It is great news, Shayna’s had such a long case, and it would have been such a slog, going through that it would have been tough,” Titmus told Triple M in Hobart.

“I remember when it first started, which I think was two years ago, I’m really glad that’s all over and she can really get back in the water and do her thing.”

Jack’s saga has raised serious questions about the way anti-doping cases are dealt with.

One of Australia’s rising stars, she has always maintained she did not intentionally cheat but the system was stacked against her.

The arbitrator who heard her initial appeal agreed with her version of events that it was an innocent mistake after the levels found in her samples were so low as to be “pharmaceutically irrelevant”.

News Corp detailed the extraordinary lengths Jack went to prove her innocence but under the sport’s strict regulations, where athletes are responsible for whatever is found in their system, she was still given a two-year-ban.

Jack has fought long and hard to get back in the water.

Not only that but she was stripped of all her funding, banned from training with the teammates and ineligible for the Tokyo Olympics even though her suspension had expired by then.

A member of the Australian relay team that broke the world record at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Jack watched on television as her teammates won the Olympic gold in Tokyo.

The 22-year-old also spent more than $100,000 fighting to clear her name and was reduced to launching a crowd-funding campaign to cover her appeal costs, raising over $50,000.

Anti-doping experts, including the American drug buster who nailed Lance Armstrong, have cited Jack’s case as an example of why the system to catch real cheats is failing and needs reforming.