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Sun Yang hearing won’t hang over Tokyo Games, say experts
By Phil Lutton
The fate of banned Chinese swimming superstar Sun Yang looks certain to be decided before the Tokyo Olympic Games as the swimming world braces for the prospect of another circus of controversy on the world’s biggest stage.
Sun, one of China’s most famous athletes and a triple Olympic champion, was given an eight-year ban from the sport in February 2020 for an out-of-competition anti-doping violation that ended with one of his entourage smashing a vial of blood.
Mack Horton refused to stand on a podium with Sun Yang at the world championships.Credit: Getty
The 29-year-old’s career looked over, as did his stormy relationship with Australian arch-rival Mack Horton, who beat him to 400m freestyle gold in Rio and refused to share a podium with him after the same race at the dramatic 2019 FINA World Championships.
But the ruling was overturned in the Swiss Federal Supreme Court after his lawyers successfully argued that the president of the CAS panel, Italian Franco Frattini, had made anti-Chinese tweets in the past. Sun will face a new panel from May 25-28, leaving CAS just two months before the Olympics start to rule on his case.
That has sparked concern that the case may still be undecided by the time racing starts on July 25, which would mean another showdown between Horton and Sun, who has become a lightning rod for controversy on the pool deck.
But anti-doping expert Dr Catherine Ordway, from the University of Canberra, said CAS had the capability to fast-track decisions on even complex cases and that would likely be the case for Sun, whose availability also impacts other aspiring athletes vying for selection in the Chinese team.
“I think that if there was a chance he could be selected for the Chinese Olympic team, I would be surprised if they (CAS) didn’t try to accommodate that. Part of the reason they established CAS in the beginning was to have an expedited process that took into account the sport timetable, which normal courts do not,” Dr Ordway said.
“So we have the CAS to allow for expedited hearings where it is in the interests of the athlete to have it resolved. In normal cases, we can see these things taking months, maybe longer. But we’ve seen plenty of examples where they do speed up the process.
“Anything to do with selection, they try to do as quickly as possible so the athlete has the best chance possible to be selected. It’s in everybody’s interest to have it resolved in time. I doubt he would want to compete under the cloud of then losing any medals.”