The Swiss court recently announced that they have reversed the Court of Arbitration for Sport (the CAS)’s 8-year ban on Sun Yang, China’s superstar swimmer. Sun Yang was charged for refusing a doping test and received an 8-year ban in all competitions. According to the Swiss court, the decision is based on a tweet by one of the arbitrators of the case. The tweet shows racism and discrimination towards Chinese people. As a result, a new group of arbitrators is needed to re-evaluate the case.
Background
Sun Yang is arguably one of the best long-distance swimmers in history. He is a three-time Olympic gold medallist and eleven-time world champion. During the 2012 London Olympics, Sun became the first Chinese man to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming. He is also the first male swimmer in history to earn Olympic and World Championship gold medals at every freestyle distance between 200 and 1500 meters.
Sun Yang’s career could have been perfect. However, an incident in 2018 turned things upside down. On September the 4th, three anti-doping testers arrived at Sun’s home for a urine test. Nothing went wrong at the start. Yet Sun discovered that one of the testers seemed suspicious. given that the tester was taking photos of him and asked for autographs. As a result, Sun demanded the tester to show credentials, which the latter failed to provide. After consulting with his coach and lawyer, Sun asked his bodyguard to smash the sample, thus making the process incomplete.
FINA first decided Sun Yang’s action did not violate any rules. However, World Anti-Doping Agency insisted that Sun should be punished and pushed the case to the CAS. The CAS eventually charged Sun Yang for an 8-year ban in all competitions, which technically ended the Chinese superstar’s career.
Controversies and Conflicting Narratives
Sun Yang’s incident has caused quite a lot of controversies. Before the CAS officially made the charge, Australian swimmer Mack Horton refused to share the podium with Sun Yang when the latter won the first place of 400m freestyle at the World Swimming Championship in South Korea. Horton’s teammates and many swimmers, mainly from western countries, supported Horton on the matter. Australian media went even further by directly calling Sun Yang a cheater. The hostility was pushed to a higher level when Duncan Scott, a Canadian swimmer, followed the steps of Horton to boycott the podium. This time Sun Yang did not hold back. He went directly to Scott and said to Canadian’s face: “I win, you lose.” As a result, the western media started to portray Sun as an arrogant cheater who did not qualify to swim.
On the other hand, the Chinese narratives were way different. Enraged fans took the incident as a complete set up to clear Sun out of the competition. Some said the real reason behind the western athletes and media’s attack on Sun is racism. More importantly, Sun himself insisted on his innocence and expressed anger towards the accusations. All factors combined, the ban remained a controversial topic till today. It will most likely remain controversial in the near future.
What Now?
It seems connecting the whole incident to racism is not outrageous after all. The tweet does show a certain level of hatred towards Chinese people. As for the ban itself, it is rather too harsh compared to similar cases in the past. Some Chinese media also raised questions on the doping problem within Australia’s swimming team and accusing Mack Horton of a hypocrite. Nevertheless, Sun Yang’s case will not be resolved easily. It will remain one of the most controversial incidents in the history of professional swimming.
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