Editorial

As fans in China call on authorities to come clean on the doping case of an Olympic champion and his doctor and the ‘facts’ as we will be told them make their way to the world in fits, starts and convenient moments, there is one truth we can rely on: today is Sun Yang’s birthday

Sun Yang turns 23 today. Events of the past week will not have helped put him in a mood to party. Last Monday, it was revealed that Sun tested positive on May 17 at China nationals for  trimetazidine, a heart stimulant banned for the past year in competition and clearly listed in the WADA Code, the alert of its addition to the list of banned substances dating back to September last year.

It was July when Sun gave his version of events at a hearing, it was November 24 when CHINADA, the national anti-doping agency, revealed via the Xinhua news agency that the Olympic 400 and 1500m champion had been banned for three months backdated to May 17. Sun Yang raced to three golds at the Asian Games in late September – and all the while none who knew what had happened said anything. Worse still, Dr Ba Zhen, the doctor who prescribed the heart drug to Sun, worked on deck with the swimmer even though he had been banned for a year from May 17.

Dr Ba, 41, was named by FINA in a November 24 case file posted on the international swimming federation’s website more than two hours after SwimVortex.com, along with media around the world, had run the story emerging from Xinhua.

Now comes news that suggests blame at CHINADA. Dr Ba and Sun were, the Chinese media report, working off a published banned list dated March 2014 that ‘allowed the use of trimetazidine’. If that is the case, then the list published by CHINADA was out of date. As late as June, when Sun’s positive test came to light, CHINADA’s website was still listing trimetazidine as a “can use” substance, according to Chinese media, led by a statement from the state news agency’s Xinhua Sports Director Hsu Jen.

That “can use” reference in Chinese media reports is interesting. The list that is most pertinent to swimmers is that of banned substances, not that of what you can take. Trimetazidine was clearly listed as a banned substance, along with explanatory note, by WADA. Was that WADA list not available to Dr. Ba – and if not, why not?

Yesterday, Chinese media attempting to click on the “doping” case reports at CHINADA found four broken links, while the relevant information was right up to date, “trimetazidine” clearly listed as a no-go in competition.

Some reports in China stretch to suggesting that the drug was still “ok to use” on the CHINADA’s website as late as last week. That would be hard to fathom, for the July hearing at which Sun got to tell his side of events would surely have alerted CHINADA to the problem if indeed it was a problem. Why would CHINADA wait from July to the third week in November to correct what would have been a mighty mistake if it had been made aware of that mistake in July at the latest?

Whatever the answer, it seems clear that the timeline and the obfuscation of officialdom has contributed to a loss of trust and has tainted Sun Yang with a doping record that will not go away regardless of what explanations are now given many months after the facts were known and well beyond deadlines for reporting such matters as set out in the WADA Code and in FINA rules.

Sun, meanwhile, has received messages of support from Chinese fans on his 23rd birthday, national media reports, many telling him on social media that they feel he has been treated unjustly. Nothing is said of Dr. Ba in that context and there is no taking away the fact that swimmer (who in the rules has ultimate responsibility for anything that gets his bloodstream) and doctor got it wrong: the WADA source on banned substances is and remains the last line of defence and is the document that many thousands around the world must and do consult in an environment that dictates care and caution no matter how much of inconvenience that may be, no matter what the language difficulties may be

Chinese swimming has access to people who can handle themselves in English – the official working language of international sport – perfectly well, so language is no excuse.  Further, the China FINA Bureau Qiuping Zhang would have surely have felt compelled to pass on what he must have known in June and at the latest in July to FINA Director Cornel Marculescu long before the Asian Games in late September and even longer before that November 24 revelation of what had been kept hidden.

Given that FINA is now 6 days into pondering the simple question from The Times and SwimVortex.com …

When was FINA made aware of the Sun Yang positive test?

… we cannot know the precise timing of who knew what when. But there is no doubt that senior FINA figures knew that Sun had tested positive and had served a ban by the time he took to his blocks at the Asian Games in Incheon – and they told the world nothing at all.

China Fans Back Sun

Sun Yang’s coach Zhang Yadong [CN.TV]

Fans believe fault lies primarily with such officials and folk at CHINADA. One Sun Yang fan and mini blogger in China wrote: “The truth is out … the adverse effects on the athlete but we hope that the authorities reflect seriously on [their part] and stop stalling on the [facts].” Understandable that fans might feel aggrieved with process and people in positions of authority (and not only in China). Sun Yang appears to feel aggrieved, too: he is reported to have called on fans to share the video blog with others.

Of course, the popular vote should have no influence on anti-doping matters. The facts, those so hard to come by in this case even though half a year, two bans and a hearing have gone by, are what should count.

Sun Yang is currently at training camp with coach Zhang Yadong in Kunming, a stage of preparation he goes through each year. For now he is free to prepare for a 2015 World Championships next August that those who served him with a ban in China – backed by FINA’s consent – have granted him access to.

The explanations and allegations of poor handling by CHINADA lie at the root of justification for the leniency shown to Sun. They prepare the way for the conclusion Chinese swimming would want us all to reach: its prime asset was not really to blame. But if those explanations being given are correct, then Dr. Ba would clearly be just as able to say ‘not as much fault of mine as the 1-year suspension served on me would indicate’. Perhaps that is why the doctor was allowed to continue to work with the Chinese swimming team in major international competition during the period of suspension.

Two wrongs (or in this case a deal more number of wrongs) don’t make a right and the bad taste the Sun Yang case leaves in the mouth of the world swimming community – and all who back clean sport and all those coaches and swimmers who go to lengths each day to make sure they know the rules and play by them – stretches to a loss of trust all the more damaging in the context of China. In the context of the outright lies – many defended by FINA at the time – and obfuscation – FINA playing its part in that, too – we came to expect from those at the helm of swimming in China in the 1990s.

China is said to have cleaned up its act, educated its ranks, brought them up to world standards since the crisis-torn 1990s that tipped into the new Millennium. And yet here we are on Sun Yang’s 23rd birthday on December 1, 2014  and those who could best defend him find themselves unable to do so in a world in which truth is not about the speedy transparency and neutral approach to all doping cases that ought to prevail but about working on the detail of what might eventually come to be known as the truth.

Meanwhile, our question to FINA stands:

When was FINA made aware of the Sun Yang positive test?

Our coverage of the case so far:

• Olympic Champion Sun Yang Fails Doping Test, Serves 3-Month Ban; Now, FINA Report
• How Sun Yang Will Pay A Penalty Beyond The 3 Months He Served In The Shadows
• WADA May Take The Sun Yang Case To CAS As China Misses 20-Day Deadline (By A Mile)
• FINA: When Did You Know About Sun Yang? And Was The Barred Dr. Ba In Incheon?
• Dr. Ba Zhen, Banned With Sun Yang May 17, ‘On Games Deck With Swimmer In September’