Mack Horton watches Sun Yang during the medal ceremony for the 400m freestyle at the world championships in Gwangju last year.Credit:Getty
Tygart,the USADA chief executive,condemned swimming’s world governing body FINA for mishandling the Sun case from start to finish and said the sport needed to set up an independent integrity unit just as World Athletics had done with the Athlete Integrity Unit.
“You have to have faith in the process and justice being done but the initial in-house FINA panel you cannot have faith in. It’s the fox in charge of the hen house,"Tygart said.
“They didn’t disqualify his results from September 2018,his world championships gold medals.
“We will see what the decision looks like when we see it in writing but you are immediately disqualified unless rules of fairness dictates otherwise. I can’t imagine what rules of fairness would dictate that he kept his medals. Fairness to who?
"It has to be about the fairness to the clean athlete not to the athlete who is found guilty and banned for eight years. I can’t envisage what they could possibly say for not disqualifying those world championships results.”
He said Horton and other swimmers were badly let down by FINA,which had initially cleared Sun who was only banned after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Horton famously refused to share the podium with Sun when he won gold at last year’s world championships while Briton Duncan Scott refused to shake his hand on the podium.