The Sports Arbitration Court sanctioned Chinese swimmer Sun Yang , three-time Olympic and 11 world champion, with eight years out of competition, for destroying the evidence of a doping control in 2018 on Friday.

The sanction against Sun, 28, is effective as of Friday, the TAS said, which issued the highest possible sanction - the accusation requested between two and eight years - when considering his recidivism, since the Chinese swimmer was three months away from the pools in 2014 for testing positive for trimetazidine.

The punishment could end the career of one of the most successful athletes in China, although the TAS clarified that its previous results in international competitions are not invalidated, since they never tested positive for doping controls.

Sun "has failed to justify why he destroyed the samples" and committed a violation of the anti-doping rules, said a spokesman for the TAS when reporting the decision at the doors of this agency in Lausanne (Switzerland).

The facts tried date back to September 4, 2018, when a team of four people visited Sun's home at night with the intention of conducting an anti-doping control that included blood and urine samples.

The swimmer and his environment argued that this control was a violation of the privacy of the athlete, questioned the authenticity of the credentials of the examiners and finally destroyed - by hammering - the samples.

The case reached the Anti-Doping Panel of the International Swimming Federation (FINA), which on January 3, 2019 gave the reason to Sun and considered that the collection of samples was invalid, which allowed the athlete to compete in the Gwangju World Championships ( South Korea), in which he achieved gold in the 200 and 400 meters free.

However, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chose to appeal FINA's decision to the TAS, and the case was heard by this court on November 15 at a public hearing, at the request of the defense.

A historical judgment

It lasted 11 hours, and it was the second time in history that a TAS trial was publicly transmitted, 20 years after the first, in which Irish swimmer Michelle Smith De Bruin litigated against FINA.

Three months later, the highest instance of sports arbitration disregarded the previous FINA decision and issued a severe punishment against Sun, noting that "it is not for an athlete to determine whether an anti-doping control should be carried out or not."

He added that the staff of the controversial 2018 test "met all the requirements set by the WADA."

Sun is one of the most popular athletes in China, but at the Olympic and World Games he has starred in numerous controversies and clashes with swimmers from other countries, who have frequently accused him of using doping substances.

In the past World Cups, there was a resounding sounding in the medal ceremony of the 400-meter final, after the decision of the Australian Mack Horton , second in the test, not to take the podium with Sun as a protest for the alleged use of doping substances of the winner.

Horton, personally confronting Sun for years, did not want to be photographed with him, either on the podium or in the usual inn next to the foot of the pool.

The incidents were repeated days later in the ceremony of awarding medals of the 200 meters free, in which Sun Yang did not invite to share the podium, as is traditional, to the British Duncan Scott , bronze medalist, and he rebuked him.

The Chinese swimmer had pointed out to the press in his country that in this case he was in honor of "respect for all athletes in China," and argued that he had been one of the athletes who had the most doping controls he had to pass during his career, With more than 200 tests.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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