BWF imposes eight-month backdated ban on Lee Chong Wei on doping charges

KUALA LUMPUR: Former World No.1 Lee Chong Wei was today handed an eight-month sanction for a doping violation but the Malaysian star shuttler will be able to return to international badminton next month as the ban was backdated from August 30.

The 33-year-old Malaysian was temporarily suspended by the BWF on November 11 last year after traces of the banned substance dexamethasone was detected in his system while competing in the World Championship in Copenhagen in August.

"The sanction, imposed by the BWF Doping Hearing Panel, has resulted from an Adverse Analytical Finding of Lee's sample taken at the BWF World Championships last 30 August in Denmark," BWF said in a release.

"That sample contained Dexamethasone, a Specified Substance prohibited "in competition", the source of which was a contaminated casing(s) of a gelatin capsule(s) containing a food supplement that Lee had been taking.

"Appearing before the BWF Doping Hearing Panel on 11 April, Lee accepted that Dexamethasone was present in his sample and that he had consequently committed an anti-doping violation under regulation 2.1 of the BWF Anti-Doping Regulations (2009)," the release said.

Lee's lawyers argued that "he did so inadvertently and that either no sanction should take place according to Clause 10.5.1, or at least that any sanction should be reduced according to Clause 10.4."

"Given arguments and evidence put forward by Lee's legal team at the hearing in the Netherlands, the panel stated: 'The panel is convinced this is not a case of doping with intent to cheat'," the release said.

"However, the panel found that Lee had been "negligent", but with the degree of negligence being "rather light" as "he did not realise he had ingested a Specified Substance (Dexamethasone)".

"The Doping Hearing Panel has deemed it "correct and fair" to backdate the period of ineligibility to the date of sample collection, thereby ending his sanction on 30 April, 2015, and making Lee Chong Wei eligible to resume his badminton career on Friday 1 May, 2015," it added.

Chong Wei thus will be able to participate in upcoming tournaments such as the Sudirman Cup in Dongguan (May), SEA Games in Singapore (June) and World Championships (August).