Sun’s doping case hits interpretation snag
GENEVA: Chinese Olympic swimming champion Sun Yang’s antidoping case, in which he is facing an eight-year ban for missing a drug test, won’t be settled before mid-january because of translation problems, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said.
The Swiss-based court said “some concerns were raised” about the translation of Sun’s testimony f rom Chinese i nto English at the one-day hearing on November 15. The triple Olympic gold medal-winner, who served a doping suspension in 2014, is accused of smashing a blood vial with a hammer following a visit by testers in September last year.
“Although the organisation and the schedule of the public hearing was to the satisfaction of the arbitrators and parties’ counsels, some concerns were raised with respect to the quality of the interpretation of Mr. Yang’s testimony,” a CAS statement said.
“The parties are currently preparing an agreed-upon transcript of the proceedings, including a full translation of Mr Yang’s testimony, which the panel will work from when deliberating and preparing the arbitral award,” CAS said, adding that the case would not be decided before mid-january. Sun’s CAS hearing was beset by technical difficulties and interpreting errors between Chinese and English which frustrated lawyers and held up proceedings.
CAS said the private translation service was provided by Sun’s camp and agreed by both parties, adding that it couldn’t hire its own interpreters for reasons of “independence and neutrality”. Swimming body FINA confirmed in January that Sun had used a hammer to smash a vial containing his own blood sample during the testing session, but acquitted him of antidoping violations, agreeing that testers had failed to produce adequate identification.
But the ruling outraged the World Anti-doping Agency which took the matter to CAS, demanding a ban of between two and eight years for missing the out-of-competition test.