Swimming star Sun Yang has issued a defiant response to having his Tokyo Olympic dream slashed, with the ban still giving him hope of a final Olympic campaign.
A new panel of judges at the Court of Arbitration for Sport banned the 29-year-old Sun on Tuesday for four years, three months — about half the eight-year sanction handed down after the first trial in 2019.
The verdict ended Sun's hopes of defending his Olympic title in the 200m freestyle in Tokyo next month. But the ban was backdated to February 2020, meaning Sun could return for the 2024 Paris Olympics when he would be 32.
In the wake of his suspension, Sun told Chinese media that he will "not give up" in a WeChat conversation with a journalist from the Shanghai-based newspaper The Paper.
"I'll definitely jiayou (add oil) and won't give up," Sun said, before adding that he is "actually in very good condition" despite the suspension.
The phrase "add oil", gayau in Cantonese, is a phrase used for encouragement and support that is commonly used in sport in China.
Judges found Sun "to have acted recklessly" when he refused to let anti-doping officials leave his home with a sample of his blood back in 2018. The formal charges were for refusing to give a sample and tampering with a doping control.
Sun won a total of 11 gold medals in five straight world championships from 2011 to 2019, at each freestyle distance from 200 to 1,500.
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