A sexual harassment case involving a teenage Chinese woman pool player took a new twist yesterday amid charges that top officials tried to silence her and also siphoned off training funds.
At a press conference on Monday, Zhou Ruixin (周瑞新), who runs a Shanghai pool hall, said officials had retaliated against his daughter for blowing the whistle on sexual harassment while they had also pocketed thousands of dollars in cash from sports ministry funds.
"Some leading officials at the Multi-ball Games Administration Center did things that cannot bear the light of day," Zhou was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
The center, under the sports ministry, is responsible for cue sports such as pool, billiards and snooker.
The sexual harassment case blew up in December when Zhou Mengmeng, 19, (周萌萌) told the media she had been harassed and beaten by Tian Pengfei (田鵬飛), a double gold medalist in snooker at the Asian Games, according to media reports..
Following an investigation, China's sports ministry decided last month to ban both players for a year, punishing Zhou for speaking out to the media about the incident that took place at the Asian Games in Doha.
At Monday's press conference in Shanghai, her father said that sports officials had also blocked his daughter from travelling abroad, intervening to stop her from obtaining a visa to play in the US.
He also made graft charges against a unnamed top official from the center.
Zhou said four pool players, a coach and a senior official visited Shanghai in August to train for the Doha Asian Games.
He said that hotel bills for the trip were inflated by almost US$3,000.
"They cooked accounts and likely took possession of training funds allotted by the country for the Doha Asian Games worth 22,400 yuan [US$2,870]," Zhou said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but