Shayna Jack: World Anti-Doping Agency lodges appeal against swimmer’s ban

Shayna Jack’s Tokyo Olympics dream has copped yet another fresh blow with a powerful player weighing in against her.

Australian swim team swimmer Shayna Jack.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has also lodged an appeal against Shayna Jack’s reduced doping ban.

The details of the appeal have not been made public but highly-placed sources have told The Daily Telegraph the Montreal-based agency submitted an appeal early Tuesday morning.

WADA’s decision comes hot on the heels of Sport Integrity Australia’s (SIA) announcement that it is appealing against the two-year reduction, with chief executive David Sharpe saying SIA was seeking “clarity on key anti-doping legal principles”.

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Shayna Jack’s Tokyo Olympics dream was dealt a fresh hammer blow on Tuesday morning.

“Sport Integrity Australia will always act to ensure a level playing field for athletes,” Sharpe said in a statement.

“In order to protect athletes and sporting competitions, we must have clarity and consistency in the application of the World Anti-Doping Code.”

SIA, previously known as Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), initially suspended Jack for four years after she had tested positive to the banned anabolic agent ligandrol at a training camp before last year’s world championships.

She appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which last month halved her suspension to two years after agreeing with her version of events that she unknowingly took the banned substance, while also taking into account that her sample levels were so low as to be “pharmaceutically irrelevant”.

Shayna Jack (C) speaks to the media after a hearing in Brisbane with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA). Picture: Tertius Pickard/AFP

However, the findings from that appeal are now being challenged, both by WADA and SIA.

The Daily Telegraph understands that WADA’s appeal is based on similar grounds to SIA’s.

Swimming’s world governing body FINA also has the option of appealing but has not indicated yet whether it will.

The appeals are a devastating setback for Jack, who has already been left financially crippled by her long, drawn out case, because it effectively kills off her already faint hopes of swimming at next year’s rescheduled Tokyo Olympics – regardless of the appeal outcome.

Under new anti-doping regulations coming into force next year, athletes who are found to have accidentally tested positive to minuscule levels of banned substances may be eligible for further reductions.

In Jack’s case, she only needs to have around one month trimmed from her reduced two-year ban to be able to compete at the Australian Olympic trials but the prospect of an appeal – which can take anywhere between six and 12 months to be heard – all but ensures she will run out of time.

Shayna Jack has publicly declared her innocence.

Jack has not made any public comment yet following news of the appeals, opting to remain silent after she was heavily criticised for prematurely declaring her innocence on social media when her ban was cut in half last month, saying at the time: “I walk a little taller tonight with the fact that this ordeal is finally over.

“I am returning to swimming – the sport that I have loved all my life and the sport that I will cherish just that little bit more ongoing.”

Critics of the current anti-doping laws are now calling for the system to be overhauled to reduce the heavy sanctions and expensive legal cases when athletes are found to have accidentally ingested banned substances.

Improvements to testing procedures have seen a massive spike in inadvertent results, leading to the introduction of new regulations from next year and calls for a more consistent approach to handing out sanctions.

There have been dozens of cases in the United States where athletes who have accidentally tested positive to banned substances have escaped bans while China’s Sun Yang was only given a three month ban in 2014 when he tested positive to a banned substance he said he was taking for a heart condition.

Originally published as Shayna Jack: World Anti-Doping Agency lodges appeal against swimmer’s ban