After serving a contentious four-year drug restrictions, China’s most decorated swimmer has made a triumphant comeback.
Sun Yang won silver in the men’s 400m slalom at China’s National Summer Swimming Championships. He eventually reportedly broke down while speaking to reporters in the Hefei area.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ( CAS ) suspended Sun in 2020 because he had refused to give samples to testers who had come to his house.
He had recently received widespread acclaim in China as a drug lie, but state media praised his return.
It comes shortly after a highly publicised anti-doping row at the Paris Olympics this summer, in which China said its athletes were being unfairly targeted.
In a sad beach interview with investigators, 32-year-old Sun thanked those near to him for helping him get back to competing.
He told the South China Morning Post,” This is really because of the emphasis and support from my relatives– that’s what has kept me going up to this day.”
Sun won the second 400-meter and 1,500-meter free competition at the Olympics in 2012, making him China’s first male swimmer to do so. Four times, he followed this up with another metal in the 200m slalom at the Rio Olympics.
However, his occupation crashed in 2018 when anti-doping officials visited his house to conduct an outside-the-box test.
Sun and his team claimed that the testers lacked the necessary certifications and that they had resisted cooperating with them.
A part of Sun’s crew allegedly smashed a bottle of his body with a chisel to avengeance when they attempted to leave with the sample.
Sun, who had already been given a three-month suspension for using the banned substance Trimetazidine ( TMZ), denied any wrongdoing and was first cleared by swimming’s governing body Fina.
Two years later, but, CAS overturned the determination and ruled that Sun had refused to cooperate with the trial testing. He was given an eight-year restrictions that was later reduced to four times and three times on appeal.
Sun was permitted to keep all of his awards because he had never physically tested positive for any prohibited substances.
His success on Sunday, which received a lot of positive feedback on his social media posts, received widespread applause from Chinese state media sources.
” Brother Sun, do n’t cry. The past four years have n’t been easy. You’re amazing”, said one person on Weibo.
Another said:” Thanks to Sun Yang. Four years and three weeks of deliberation and patience have all paid off and led to this time. Looking forward to Los Angeles”.
Chinese swimmers have been in the spotlight since the Paris Olympics after a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was covering it up.
Chinese athletes headed to Paris were drug-tested half as much as some other countries, which, in turn, has fuelled charges of a plot to destroy their effectiveness.
At the time, the state-run Global Times blamed Western powers for “abusing doping tests to disrupt]the ] Chinese swimming team”, while breaststroke champion Qin Haiyang accused opposing teams of using underhand” tricks” to disrupt Chinese competitors.
Sun made a long-awaited profit to indicate his native Zhejiang, but it’s not clear whether he will be allowed to reflect China on the global level.
Athletes who have been banned for more than a year are not ready to be selected for the national squad, according to the nation’s anti-doping laws.
Sun insists that despite his obvious shortcomings, he did “go all out” to contend for a place at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
No swimmers who competed in the Paris Olympics participated in his race on Sunday, and he finished almost nine hours behind his earlier best day of clocked in London in 2012.
” I may have done better. Four years away from competitors and without extensive training, I do think dirty in controlling the intensity, and I need more competitions”, he told state-run store China Daily.
” But it’s a good start for my return, and I’m happy with this result”, he added.