The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) on Friday handed Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, a three-time Olympic champion, eight years ban for missing an out-of-competition doping test.
The 28-year-old is one of China's top athletes, having won two gold medals at the 2012 London Olympic games and another in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
"The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has upheld the appeal filed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against the Chinese swimmer Sun Yang and the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA). As a consequence, Sun Yang (the Athlete) is sanctioned with an eight-year period of ineligibility, starting on the date of the CAS award," read CAS statement.
Following a conflictual anti-doping test at the residence of Sun Yang in September 2018 which resulted in the testing not being completed, the matter was initially referred to the FINA Doping Panel (FINA DP) which found that the International Standard for Testing and Investigations (ISTI), the protocol adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for the conduct of doping controls, had not been properly followed.
Therefore, the FINA DP invalidated the sample collection. As a consequence, the FINA DP determined that the athlete had not committed an anti-doping rule violation.
WADA filed an appeal at CAS against that decision, asserting that Sun Yang had voluntarily refusedto submit to sample collection and requesting that a period of ineligibility between a minimum 2 yearsand a maximum of 8 years be imposed on him.
WADA Director General Olivier Niggli said: "WADA decided to appeal the original FINA ruling having carefully reviewed it and having concluded that there were a number of points that seemed to be incorrect under the Code."
"Today's CAS ruling confirms those concerns and is a significant result. We will now need to take time to review the decision in full, and we will continue to review diligently all anti-doping decisions taken by Code Signatories to ensure they are in line with the Code and, when warranted, to exercise our independent right of appeal," he added.
The ban means Sun won't be able to compete at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
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