ATHLETES TO SURRENDER MEDALS
Tunku Imran confirms doping violation punishment
OUTGOING Sea Games Federation (SEAGF) president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar, yesterday confirmed that three athletes, including Malaysian diver Wendy Ng Yan Yee, will be stripped of their Kuala Lumpur Sea Games (KL2017) medals for doping violations during the Games in August.
Tunku Imran, who is also the president of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM), made the announcement after chairing the OCM’s final executive board meeting this year in Kuala Lumpur.
The other two athletes are Thailand’s Benjaporn Sriphanomthorn (swimming) and Nurisan Loseng (pencak silat).
During the Games, Wendy came out tops in both the women’s three-metre springboard and mixed 3M springboard synchro event.
The individual gold will now be awarded to teammate Nur Dhabitah Sabri who came in second, while in the mixed event, the gold goes to fellow Malaysian duo Muhammad Syafiq Puteh-Jasmine Lai Pui Yee.
Athletes who got the bronze medals will be promoted to silver, while those who finished fourth will move up to bronze.
Benjaporn is set to lose both her silver medals (women’s 10 kilometre open swimming and women’s 4x200m freestyle), while compatriot Nurisan will lose the women’s team pencak silat (artistic) gold medal to Vietnam, who came in second.
“As the SEAGF outgoing president, I will make this announcement, as the last Sea Games was hosted here in Malaysia, and we are still responsible for the ongoing process that is related to doping.
“Previously, it was reported that three athletes had failed their doping tests at the Games, and they were going through the process of testing their B samples as well as the official enquiry, which was handled by Datuk Dr S S Cheema, who is the SEAGF anti-doping chairman and also head for the medical and anti-doping committee of KL2017.
“All three athletes tested positive for the banned substance sibutramine, and will be stripped of their medals.
“There will be a reallocation of medals depending on who finished third and fourth,” said Tunku Imran.
Dr Cheema, who was also present at the press conference, added: “We had our own panel who conducted the hearing via Skype, separately based on the availability of each athlete.
“The result of the hearing will also be of assistance to the respective national associations, who can take action based on the results of the probe.”
On a separate note, Tunku Imran chose not to comment on yesterday’s announcement by Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin on the dropping of taekwondo, weighlifting and sepaktakraw from the core sports programme of the National Sports Council (NSC).
“First of all I am not the right person to comment on this, as I was not at the meeting. However, what I can say is all those who are involved in running their sports should always ensure the sport is either very well run or are producing the results because those were the criteria.
“I think it must also be stated clearly that these three sports are dropped from the Malaysia Games next year and not the NSC’s programme entirely. In fact the NSC have also mentioned that they would assist these three associations on getting back onto the right track, so that they can eventually return to the Malaysia Games.”