CAS to hold Sun Yang hearing in public

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced on Tuesday that it will hold its hearing into China's Olympic champion Sun Yang in public.

China's Sun Yang reacts after competing in the men's 200m freestyle final during the swimming competition at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest, on July 25, 2017. [File photo: AFP via VCG/Christophe Simon]

CAS said in a media release that "CAS is conducting an appeal arbitration procedure brought by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against the Chinese swimmer Sun Yang and FINA in relation to a decision issued by the FINA Doping Panel dated 3 January 2019 whereby Sun Yang was found not to have committed an anti-doping rule violation following an out-of-competition doping control."

Sun has requested to make the hearing public, and CAS said on its release: "At the parties' request, the hearing, which will likely take place in Switzerland, will be open to the public (including the media). "

The hearing had been scheduled for September, but was postponed due to a request by one of the parties. "Such request was assented to by the other parties and accepted by the CAS Panel. A new hearing date will be fixed as soon as possible but is unlikely to be before the end of October 2019," added the CAS statement.

The only previous CAS hearing to be held in public was in 1999.

Sun Yang won gold in the 200m freestyle at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, and also won the 400m and 1500m freestyle at 2012 Olympics in London.

The 27-year-old also claimed the 200m and 400m freestyle titles at the 2019 FINA World Championships in Gwangju.