Sun Yang

Sun Yang (Chinese: 孙杨; Mandarin pronunciation: [swə́n.jǎŋ]; born 1 December 1991) is a Chinese Olympic and world-record-holding competitive swimmer. In 2012, Sun became the first Chinese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in men's swimming. Sun is the first male swimmer in history to earn Olympic and World Championship gold medals at every freestyle distance from 200 to 1500 metres. A three-time Olympic gold medalist and eleven-time world champion, he is the most decorated Chinese swimmer in history. In 2017, NBC Sports described him as "arguably the greatest freestyle swimmer of all time".

In September 2018, Sun was involved in an incident during an out-of-competition anti-doping test at his home, where he destroyed his own blood sample after a doping control assistant (DCA) could not provide appropriate accreditations, verifying his identity and whether the test was authorized. The DCA was later confirmed to be a construction worker. FINA sided with Sun over the incident and concluded that he did not commit an anti-doping rule violation for not submitting himself to an unaunthorized doping test conducted by a construction worker. On 28 February 2020, Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) delivered its findings, overturning FINA's decision and banning Sun for eight years for tampering with the doping control process for not submitting himself to an unaunthorized doping test conducted by a construction worker. Some analysts opined that the trial was marred by severe translation problems, conflict of interest, bias and an "absence of evidence" around doping activity. CAS also ruled that Sun would not officially lose any of his medals because "doping tests performed on the Athlete shortly before and after the aborted doping control in September 2018 were negative" and that "in the absence of any evidence that the Athlete may have engaged in doping activity since 4 September 2018, including on the occasion of the FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea in July 2019, the results achieved by the Athlete in the period prior to the CAS award being issued should not be disqualified". On 22 June 2021, after the retrial of the case, the CAS upheld the ban but reduced the suspension time to 4 years and three months.