The former world no 1 player, Lee Chong Wei will be back in action from may 1st onwards after being handed backdated 8-month ban by Badminton World Federation on Monday. The Malaysian was provisionally suspended since November after testing positive for an anti-inflammatory drug, dexamethasone during the world championships in Denmark.
Lee’s legal team presented their case to BWF’s Doping Hearing Panel on April 11th , accepting the presence of the drug but arguing that it was not intended to enhance his performance or mask the presence of sports enhancing drug and put forward evidence, thereto.
The three-member panel found the athlete met all conditions for Clause 10.4 of the BWF Anti-Doping Regulations (2009) to be applicable and was convinced with the case put forward by Lee. The Panel has deemed it “correct and fair” to backdate the period of ineligibility to the date of sample collection, ending on 30th April. The panel found that Lee had been “negligent”, but ruled that the degree of negligence was “rather light”. His dexamethasone contamination was said” to be from the gelatin casing of food supplement he was consuming. They, however, question Lee’s level of anti-doping education/anti-doping security”, and that “the responsibility to act without negligence is the personal obligation of the athlete”.
Lee will be eligible to represent Malaysia at the upcoming SEA Games in Singapore in June and keep his dreams of Gold live with qualifiers for Rio Olympics starting on may 4th.
edited by Bhavna Rachuri
