Sun Yang has set his sights on competing at Paris 2024 - which will be only two months after his doping ban finishes ©Getty Images

Chinese swimmer Sun Yang has set his sights on competing at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris after his ban for smashing a blood vial with a hammer during a row with drugs testers was cut to four years and three months.

Sun, a six-time Olympic medallist, was initially hit with an eight-year suspension before it was reduced to four years and three months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The suspension for the controversial athlete rules him out of participating at the delayed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, due to open on July 23.

But he will be able to return to competition in time for Paris 2024 as his ban expires in May, two months prior to the start of the Games in the French capital.

Sun - granted a new CAS hearing after the President of the panel which banned him for eight years, Franco Frattini was removed over a series of discriminatory tweets - promised he would "persist" with his career despite the lengthy ban.

"Actually my body is in great physical condition," the 29-year-old was quoted as saying in an interview with state-owned Chinese online newspaper The Paper.

"Difficulties will only help me grow and make me stronger."

Six-time Olympic champion Sun Yang has been ruled out of competing at Tokyo 2020 even after having his eight-year doping ban reduced to four years and three months ©Getty Images
Six-time Olympic champion Sun Yang has been ruled out of competing at Tokyo 2020 even after having his eight-year doping ban reduced to four years and three months ©Getty Images

The CAS handed Sun an eight-year ban in February 2020, a verdict the 29-year-old successfully appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, following a public hearing in November 2019.

The Swiss Federal Tribunal ruled the case needed to be reheard because of the racist tweets posted by Frattini.

Following the latest hearing, Sun was found guilty of "evading, refusing or failing to submit to sample collection by an athlete and tampering or alleged tampering with any part of doping control by an athlete or other person".

Sun, an 11-time world champion, denied wrongdoing and claimed the officials who arrived to test him at his home on the September 2018 night which could still cost him his career did not have the correct credentials.

But the first CAS panel agreed with the World Anti-Doping Agency that the accreditation of the doping control officer at the centre of the row, which led to the vial being smashed, was in line with international standards.

In the original verdict, the CAS said Sun had "failed to establish that he had a compelling justification to destroy his sample collection containers".