[Editor’s note: In September of 2018, Olympic champion swimmer and world record holder Sun Yang had a run-in with drug testers that resulted in one of Sun’s bodyguards smashing a vial of his blood that was intended to be used to examine whether or not he was compliant with anti-doping rules. That much is fact. After that, the details get murky. In July, The Guardian leaked the full 59-page FINA Doping Panel report about the incident, to the chagrin of FINA, and this, at a minimum, illuminated the details of the “he said, she said” of that night. The report doesn’t answer all of the questions, but it is the best available information about what happened that night. The thought of poring through 59 pages of a doping panel report is a daunting time commitment, and making sense of it all and tying those dots together can be difficult. The result is that there has been a lot of misinformation about the incident, the panel, and its report circulating on pool decks and on social media. Between now and the November 15th-scheduled appeal hearing about the incident, we’re going to spend some time breaking down the report into more digestible pieces for our readers. This will include pulling in information not in the report where appropriate, examining rules cited, shedding light on who is involved, and helping our readers to better understand the knowns, the unknowns, and the process of this saga.]
The following is the first installation of four-part series.
Who and what is the FINA doping panel?
Contrary to what may be the common understanding of the situation, members of FINA itself (or the FINA Bureau) did not review Sun Yang’s case. FINA maintains a six-person doping panel to independently review cases in such instances as the one at hand. The Bureau does, however, have significant control over who is on the panel and for how long appointed members serve.
FINA member nations nominate candidates for appointment to the panel. Candidates are supposed to be “known for their ability, their impartiality and their knowledge about the FINA Rules as well as their experience of sport in general and the Aquatic sports in particular.” Candidates also have “legal training, experience and knowledge of doping matters.”
The Bureau picks from the applicants and can appoint picks “for such a number of successive terms as considered appropriate by the Bureau.” One panel member gets appointed chairman.
Whenever it is necessary for a panel to convene over a case, one to three members of the panel are appointed. No member can hear a specific case when he is a citizen of the country of the individual or organization under review. The panel chair can also determine if there are other potential conflicts of interest at play.
Currently, the panel consists of the following six men:
- Robert Fox (SUI), chairman
- Farid Ben Belkacem (ALG), member
- Bill Bock (USA), member
- Peter Kerr (AUS), member
- David Lech (CAN), member
- Toshiro Ueyanagi (JPN), member
Fox, Ben Belkacem, and Lech were appointed to Sun’s case. Fox has worked a handful of cases regarding swimming in recent history, among them the Kira Toussaint, Junya Koga, Matthew Willenbring, Henrique Martins, and Kylie Palmer cases, which have had a mix of results (including in the Toussaint case, where the case was totally dropped as a false-positive, and in the Willenbring case, where the suspension was reduced to 4 months). Lech works as general counsel for the Canadian Center for Ethics and also worked on Toussaint’s and Willenbring’s cases. Ben Belkacem worked Park Tae-Wan’s case in 2015 as well as Koga’s and Palmer’s.
The trio also comprised the doping panel that initially sanctioned American Madisyn Cox to a two-year ban (later reduced to six months on appeal and with new information) in 2018.
“you do the crime you do the time”
No exception!
WADA has no credibility because it makes exceptions for some professionals and allows the to take banned substances while punishing others for less.
No, see this is the exact misinformed comment the story is trying to prevent. WADA is not allowing anyone to swim. Neither is FINA. FINA pushed to get Sun banned. This independent doping panel said no. WADA kept trying to get Sun banned and pushed the issue up to CAS.
If Sun is cleared, there’s going to be a lot of misplaced rage at WADA and FINA, who explicitly wanted him banned. But as this story is proving, it’s much harder to actually know facts than it is to summon up righteous anger at whatever random target one chooses.
I wasn’t speaking about Sun but some other professionals that have WADA approval to use banned substances for some professionals and allows the to take banned substances. I know of female gymnasts and tennis players. They call it Therapeutic Use Exemption. I consider that cheating with permission.
“FINA, who explicitly wanted him banned”
Do you have evidence for this? Everything I’ve seen has WADA pushing for his ban, the FINA appointed panel not wanting him banned and nothing from FINA either way from FINA directly.
Just read the first few pages of the 59 pages reports, FINA represented the “prosecution”, SUN represented the “defendant” while FINA doping panel was the judge, FINA provided the evidence for banning SUN for breach of regulation. FINA doping panel was independent of FINA and cleared SUN after the hearing. Your question was the reason why this article was necessary to clear the confusion.
When’s the hearing supposed to be now? I’ve lost track with how often it’s been delayed.
It’s on the 15th at 9am local time.
When did they start moderating so heavily?
I am done with this site. Good bye!
Words like “dope”, “doping”, “doper” etc all cause your comment to be flagged for moderation and your comment doesn’t show up until approved.
I think it does yea. Had the same feeling as northern swim parent couple months ago when a lot of comments (not mine) were being deleted including my one comment asking why that would be. Was an article on a more sensitive subject as well, can’t remember at all what topic it was tho
You are so right.
Let’s test that theory:
Epstein didn’t kill himself
It is no excuse that your country’s doping agency is corrupt. He should be band for 5 years.
Lmao! Its been up 9 hours & am I the only one ?Excellent work there 99.
They will never ban him. He brings in too much money. Money runs everything
Dolla dolla bill y’all
Perhaps you are right.
This is why I like ISL
Are you suggesting that the three members of the doping panel are receiving financial gain via Sun’s swimming career? Or did you not read the story and assume it was FINA or CHINADA that chose not to ban him?
Thank you for doing this. I’ve been befuddled by this whole ordeal for a while and this will really help!
There will be a media viewing area at the hearing, and it will be live-streamed around the world. While there are surely ways to fudge even those things, given that CAS is managing the “openness” of it, it seems that this part of the hearing process, at least, will be transparent.