Chinese Olympic champions swimmer Sun Yang has been banned for eight years, after Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) appeal.
Yang, who won gold at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics as well as numerous World Championships, was accused of smashing vials containing his blood so that they could not be tested by drug-testers swimming's governing body FINA in September of 2018.
It is claimed that Yang's mother and his entourage would not allow the testers to remove the samples because they claimed they did not have correct accreditation.
Remarkably, FINA decided not to ban the swimmer, despite the Chinese athlete having previously served a three month ban. He would go on to claim two gold medals in the 2019 World Championships.
The decision which was appealed by WADA, with CAS handing an eight-year ban. This means he will not be able to defend his titles at the Tokyo Olympics and has effectively ended the 28-year old's career.
Explaining the ruling, a CAS statement read:
The CAS Panel unanimously determined, to its comfortable satisfaction, that the Athlete violated Article 2.5 FINA DC (Tampering with any part of Doping Control).
In particular, the Panel found that the personnel in charge of the doping control complied with all applicable requirements as set out in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations (ISTI)...
As the Panel noted, it is one thing, having provided a blood sample, to question the accreditation of the testing personnel while keeping the intact samples in the possession of the testing authorities; it is quite another thing, after lengthy exchanges and warnings as to the consequences, to act in such a way that results in destroying the sample containers, thereby eliminating any chance of testing the sample at a later stage.
