Malaysian badminton star Lee Chong Wei has early-stage nose cancer and is being treated in Taiwan, Malaysian sports officials said yesterday, following weeks of speculation about his health.
The country’s most successful Olympian ever, who enjoys superstar status in his homeland, was responding well to treatment, they said.
However, the illness would nevertheless be a devastating blow for the 35-year-old, coming after he clawed his way back up the rankings following a doping ban to play some of the best badminton of his life.
Speculation had been swirling about his health since he stopped turning up for training in July, and the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) announced that he was pulling out of the BWF World Championships and the Asian Games in Indonesia.
Subsequent reports said the three-time Olympic silver medalist had traveled to Taiwan for treatment, but officials remained tight-lipped about his condition.
In a statement yesterday, BAM president Norza Zakaria said that “the player has been diagnosed with early-stage nose cancer.”
“[Lee] is currently in Taiwan seeking treatment and I am pleased to inform you that he is responding well to his treatment, and is currently resting and recuperating among family and close friends,” Zakaria said. “BAM is in constant contact with [Lee] and we will offer any support we can to our legend.”
Missing the World Championships in July and last month was a particular blow for the former world No. 1, as the tournament’s top honor is one of the major awards missing from his trophy cabinet.
Badminton is hugely popular in Malaysia and one of the few sports where the country’s athletes perform well at the highest levels.
Lee’s unsuccessful attempts to capture Malaysia’s first-ever Olympic gold medal at three consecutive Games were followed avidly back home, as was his long-running rivalry with Chinese superstar Lin Dan.
His last shot at Olympic gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games ended in failure when the Malaysian lost out to China’s Chen Long in a nail-biting final.
Lee, currently ranked No. 4 in the world, had said Rio would be his last Olympics.
He had fought his way back to the top of the rankings after returning from a doping ban in 2015.
He tested positive for a forbidden anti-inflammatory drug at the 2014 World Championships and many feared it would end his career, but he bounced back strongly.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS