Lee Chong Wei sentenced to ‘time served’

Malaysian men’s singles star Lee Chong Wei has been given an 8-month ban by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Doping Hearing Panel.  The decision, which was made on Saturday, April 25th, was announced today on the BWF website.  Interestingly, the ban dates from the date of collection of the sample – from the 2014 BWF World Championships in Copenhagen – that tested positive for dexamethasone.

Although Lee participated in the Incheon Asian Games in September, he was only notified of the adverse finding from his Copenhagen sample on October 2nd, at which time he voluntarily withdrew from all subsequent competitions even before he was officially provisionally suspended by the BWF in November.  In light of this, the BWF panel decided to date the 8-month ban to August 30th, 2014.  Not only will he be eligible to compete again in just a few days, but the panel ruled that he will lose only his ranking points from the 2014 Worlds and that he will not be required to return his Asian Games bronze medal.

The detailed ruling from the BWF Doping Hearing Panel (available here) reveals that the fact that dexamethasone is not considered a performance-enhancing substance was key to the finding that this was not ‘doping with an intent to cheat’.  Another key to Lee’s defense was the description of the method by which dexamethasone entered his body, which appears to be via contaminated gelatin capsules used to ingest a natural food product known as Cordyseps, which he obtained from a friend who has had it powdered and capsulated in a store in Kuala Lumpur.  The fact that the defense team was able to make a convincing argument about the method by which dexamethasone entered his system told the panel that ‘he cannot have intended to enhance his sporting performance by the unwitting ingestion’.

Although Lee Chong Wei is now free to compete in the Sudirman Cup and the SEA Games, he has missed the deadline for the next two Superseries events.  It also remains to be seen whether the Malaysian star will qualify for the World Championships in Jakarta.  With the loss of his ranking points, from the 2014 Worlds, he will be only the 3rd ranked Malaysian, behind Chong Wei Feng and Zulfadli Zulkiffli.

The Badminton Association of Malaysia could elect to send Lee in place of one of the two higher-ranked shuttlers but while the World Championship qualification regulations appear to allow for a national association to send a lower-ranked player, last year, France’s 3rd ranked player does not appear to have been invited to the Worlds after the invitation for the French #2 was rejected.  The regulations only explicitly allow for the arbitrary selection of any four players if more than four from one member association are ranked within the top eight.  There is no corresponding regulation for selecting any two if more than two are ranked within the top 150.