Sun ducks questions on smashed samples

SUN Yang is proving to be as hard to catch in the courtroom as he is in the pool after he evaded all the key questions about why he destroyed his blood samples at an out of competition test at his home last year.

Sticking to his argument that he ordered his samples to be smashed because he did not believe the independent testers were properly authorised, Sun was less forthcoming when pressed about the key matters of his case at his Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing in Switzerland.

The hearing was told that Sun has been drug tested 180 times since 2012, 63 times in competition and 117 times out of competition, but when he was asked whether he was aware that refusing to supply a sample or destroying a sample would be regarded as an antidoping offence, Sun did not answer the simple question.

“The DCO (Doping Control Officer) never told me this,” he said.

“I did not have any idea of what is going on.”

Asked why he originally accepted the DCO’s credentials and agreed to provide a blood sample only to later change his mind and destroy them, Sun was just as vague with his responses.

“If during the night there was someone, a policeman, come to your house and telling you ‘I’m a policeman but I don’t have my identification’, how would you react? How would you believe?” he asked. Pressed on the matter, Sun then performed a complete flipturn, changing his official testimony and shifting part of the blame to his doctor.

In his original written testimony, Sun said he authorised the destruction of his samples and he took the bottles out of the sealed container before they were smashed by a security guard.

However, when quizzed at the hearing by one of the three CAS arbitrators, Romano Subiotto, Sun said it was his doctor, Ba Zhen, who gave the orders and subsequently removed the bottles. “It wasn’t me, it was Dr Ba. He is a professional with many years (experience),” Sun said.

“For me, I need to report it to my doctor and my leaders and follow their advice.”

Sun’s testimony was murky at times because of problems with translating his evidence from Mandarin to English and even though Sun’s legal team appointed the translator, his own lawyer Ian Meakin QC expressed his frustration at the apparent errors that were being made.