China’s most decorated winter Olympian, speed skater Wang Meng, has been given permission to return to competition after serving a 13-month ban for punching her team manager in a drunken brawl.
Wang, who has won four Olympic golds, was banned last August after the brawl with team manager Wang Chunlu, who had criticized her for coming back late to a training camp following a night out drinking with five other team mates.
The uncompromising 27-year-old has had several run-ins with officialdom in the past and missed the short track world championships in Shanghai in March, but has been back in training in China’s winter sports centre in Heilongjiang province.
“Based on Wang’s petition and after reviewing her behavior over the past year, we announce the resumption of her qualification in taking part in both domestic and international events starting from the new season,” an official with the Winter Sports Management Center of General Administration of Sport of China told state media.
Wang won 500m gold as well as a silver and bronze at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin before winning the 500m and 1,000m titles and a 3,000m relay gold in Vancouver four years later.
She had been expected to add to her haul at the next Winter Games in Sochi in 2014 until the brawl with her coach in Qingdao last year. Unlike the mostly conservative products of China’s state sports system, Wang’s often dyed hair is a physical manifestation of her outspoken character.
She was previously kicked off the Chinese team in 2007 after criticizing her coach’s tactics at the Asian Winter Games, but returned six months later after a written apology.
Wang had also clashed with police while at a training camp in June last year at Lijiang, a scenic tourist spot in southwestern China.
Wang complained on her microblog that she and her team mates had been beaten up by security guards when celebrating a Dragon Boat Festival at a pub.
After an investigation, police deemed the athletes had violated local regulations by singing and being rowdy after midnight.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS