(ANSA) – ROME, MARCH 04 – The disqualification for violating the anti-doping rules of the Chinese swimming champion Sun Yang, who will only be able to return to competitions in 2024, shortly before the Paris Olympics, is confirmed. The decision was made by the Federal Court of Lausanne, which rejected the athlete’s appeal against the decision of the Sports Arbitration Tribunal (TAS) which last year had given him a four-year and three-month disqualification for having destroyed with a hammer a vial of his blood during a doping control.
Sun Yang – three-time Olympic champion between London 2012 (400m and 1500m freestyle) and Rio 2016 (200m) – had appealed against Tas but the Swiss court, the last resort to which he could appeal, ruled that the decision “is not contrary to the fundamental principles of the legal system “. Thus ends a dispute that began in September 2018, when the swimmer had destroyed the test tube claiming that the controllers who arrived at his home did not have documents proving their identity. Since he had already tested positive in 2014 for a prohibited stimulant, Sun Yang was suspended for eight years in February 2020. The Swiss Federal Court annulled this decision the following December, sanctioning an alleged “partiality” of the president of the arbitration panel, the Italian Franco Frattini. In particular, the Chinese lawyers had brought as evidence some tweets by Frattini, in which he showed aversion to some examples of animal cruelty in China.
After a new hearing, TAS confirmed the suspension last June, while imposing a shorter duration: four years plus three months of a previous violation of the anti-doping regulations. Sun Yang was thus excluded from the Tokyo Olympics. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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