China swim king demands 'open' hearing in doping case: Report

Beijing: Under-fire swimming superstar Sun Yang has asked for a public hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Chinese state media reported Saturday, where he will mount a defence against explosive doping allegations.

Sun is one of the biggest names in the sport, the only swimmer to capture Olympic gold over 200, 400 and 1,500 metres, but has been plagued by scandal throughout his career.

A leaked report by swimming's world body FINA claimed Sun, the sport's pantomime villain, destroyed his own blood samples with a hammer last September.

FINA cleared Sun to compete but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has appealed the decision at the

Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which will hold hearings in September, with the swimmer's career on the line.

Sun's lawyers released a statement on Friday demanding a public hearing "to be fully transparent and to clear his name", China's official Xinhua news agency reported in a dispatch from Geneva.

The explosive contents of the FINA report were published by Australia's Sunday Telegraph, and Sun's lawyers accused the newspaper of publishing "an incomplete and biased account of the drug testing on Sun Yang" and of defaming the swimmer, Xinhua said.