Yulia Efimova (RUS) checks her time after completing the final qualifying heat of the Women 200M Breaststroke during the morning session at the George F. Haines International Swim Center in Santa Clara, Calif.
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An unnamed Greek athlete has tested positive and been expelled from the Rio Games, the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) announced Friday, hours before the Games get underway in Brazil.
“I don’t think we need to care too much about what the Australian says”, Sun said through a translator.
The four-times world champion was handed a lifeline on Thursday when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld her appeal against her ban from the Games, whose preparations have been overshadowed by revelations of widespread state-sponsored doping in Russian Federation.
A spokesman for the governing body declined to comment, saying the federation would issue a statement “if we have something to say”.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has since deemed a blanket ban on Russian athletes who have served doping bans as unenforceable.
Efimova, 24, was banned by FINA between October 2013 and February 2015 after testing positive for traces of the anabolic steroid DHEA.
She was ruled out of the Rio Games when the International Olympic Committee chose to ban any Russian who had served a doping ban.
Efimova, like others, took her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which wrestled with a welter of appeals right up until Friday’s opening ceremony in the confusion that followed the International Olympic Committee’s refusal to issue a blanket ban of Russian Federation.
In May Fina, however, lifted her suspension after the World Anti-Doping Agency said athletes testing positive for meldonium early this year could have taken it before it was banned.
But Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov has protested that his country has “faced” discrimination in the handling of the sanctions.
This is the second positive test of a competitor with teams having arrived in Rio after an Irish boxer was provisionally suspended on Thursday for failing a dope test.
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That result was placed on hold while the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) does further studies on the drug, which was added to the banned list at the start of the year.
