China’s Sun Yang faces life ban for smashing blood samples in front of anti-doping testers: report
- Fina finds in favour of the swimmer after bizarre turn of events at out-of-competition testing, but Wada reported to be furious
- Beijing-based lawyers representing Olympic champion refute claims and threaten to sue UK newspaper
Lawyers representing Chinese swimmer Sun Yang have responded to the allegations in The Sunday Times that he faces a lifetime ban for his treatment of anti-doping officials.
The Global Times reported on their Twitter account that Sun’s Beijing-based lawyers, Beijing Lanpeng Law Firm, said “that @thesundaytimes has dubious motives and severely infringed Sun’s privacy and reputation after publishing a story alleging that Sun had destroyed blood samples in front of anti-doping testers”.
This was published on Sunday afternoon (Beijing time) in response to the earlier report from England.
The statement from Sun’s lawyer, Zhang Qihuai, also threatened legal action against the UK newspaper after its remarkable report.
“We reserve the right to file a lawsuit against the relevant international media which reports the incident,” it said.
Sun, who has been called the “greatest freestyle swimmer of all time” on account of being the only man to win Olympic gold in the 200m, 400m, and 1,500m freestyle, has been accused of taking matters into his own hands with drug testers at an out-of-competition test at his home in September last year.
