The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland has explained the reason why it overturned the original ruling from Chinese star swimmer Sun Yang ’s hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, saying that CAS panel president Franco Frattini had shown a possible bias against Chinese people. The 29-year-old swimmer, who was originally banned for eight years by CAS last February, filed an appeal with the SFT that April. Switzerland’s highest court, which has the power to overturn rulings made by the Lausanne-based CAS, found in Sun’s favour last month They explained their reasoning on Friday in a statement, declaring that the former Italian foreign minister had exhibited an anti-China bias on Twitter in posts made in 2018 and 2019. Therefore Sun did not get the impartial hearing he was entitled to. “In his tweets, the arbitrator castigates a Chinese practice of dog slaughter and denounces the consumption of this meat at a local festival in China,” the statement said. “Some expressions refer to the skin colour of certain Chinese people he targets,” it added. “In addition, the arbitrator also made the said remarks in tweets after his appointment as president of the panel of arbitrators deciding in the Sun Yang case. Swim fans think new CAS ban will see Sun Yang miss Tokyo 2020 “Admittedly the referee himself concedes that certain words have sometimes gone beyond his thought. To say that the words ‘yellow face’ are ‘awkward’, as the respondent foundation maintains, is however, an understatement,” the court continued. “In principle, an arbitrator can also defend his convictions on social networks, but with the restraint required of judges,” the federal court said. The court found doubts over the impartiality of Frattini and overturned the ruling. It did not rule on any other aspect of Sun’s case. Sun had also appealed against another member of the panel but the SFT did not hear that having already overturned the verdict based on the appeal against Frattini. The case has now been returned to CAS where a new hearing with a new panel will take place at a future date. The original hearing was held in November, 2019, a year after the disputed sample collection at the swimmer’s home in Hangzhou in September, 2018. Sun is free to swim until that hearing is convened and eligible to take part at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games set to open in July.