Swim star Sun Yang wants CAS public hearing over WADA appeal

GENEVA (AP) — China’s star swimmer Sun Yang wants a public trial at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in September to defend himself against alleged doping rule violations that risk a ban from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Lawyers for Sun tell The Associated Press he will ask for an open process from the Lausanne-based sports court “in order to be fully transparent and to clear his name.”

The three-time Olympic champion’s case could be the first in public at CAS since a European Court of Human Rights ruling last year gave athletes more rights to open the sports court to scrutiny.

Sun, currently competing at the world championships in South Korea, faces an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

WADA is challenging a decision by swimming’s governing body, FINA, just to warn him over incidents during a doping control team’s attempts to take blood and urine samples at his home in China last September.

Media reports this year claimed Sun and his entourage destroyed a blood sample after he disputed officials’ credentials.

Lawyers for Sun say the officials “decided to stop the testing and gave the blood samples back to Sun Yang.”

Details of the FINA doping tribunal’s verdict were reported in an Australian newspaper on the eve of the world championships.

Sun’s lawyers — based in Beijing, Geneva and London — say “it is CAS and CAS alone who should hear this appeal and Sun Yang objects to being tried by the Australian press.”

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