Australia's Mack Horton refuses to share the podium with Yang Sun at this year’s swimming world championships in South Korea.Credit:AP
Despite the significance of the hearing which,in a break from convention,is open to the public,Sun Yang’s explanation of the bizarre chain of events that took place during the aborted drug testing mission was garbled by a poor translation service.
Sun Yang’s case is that he refused to provide a urine sample and later,broke into a secure box to retrieve a blood sample he had already given,because members of the drug testing team were acting suspiciously and lacked proper accreditation.
He said he became particularly concerned when he saw one of the team members filming him while he was giving blood.
He told Friday night’s hearing in the Swiss town of Le Montreux that his personal physician,Dr Ba Zhen and Dr Han Zhaoqi,the deputy director of the Zhejiang anti-doping centre,advised him not to allow the testing team to leave with his blood.
He said that after much discussion,the doping control officer in charge of the testing mission relented and agreed that if Sun Yang could find a way to access the blood sample,he could keep it.
“They tell us it is up to you,’’ Sun Yang said. “If I can open the blood,I can just keep it.”
He told the hearing that the drug testers,during their four-hour stand-off at his villa,at no point warned him that he risked serious doping offences if he prevented them from carrying out their work.