Sun Yang, a three-time Olympic champion and one of China’s most celebrated athletes, had his eight-year ban from swimming reduced to four years on Wednesday.
The ruling means Sun, 29, will miss this summer’s Olympics, but the timing of the penalty was structured in a way that will clear him to compete in time for the Paris Games in only three years.
Sun’s case was heard by a panel of judges at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland after his previous suspension — which had been heard by a different panel of arbitrators — was overturned in December.