The Chinese athletics association yesterday quashed a legal effort by one of the country's top runners to use a regional court ruling to side-step a doping offence.
Sun Yingjie was banned for two years after she tested positive for androsterone after winning silver in the 10,000 metres at the National Games in October. She had won the Beijing marathon the day before but had passed that doping test.
During an association inquiry, the 26-year-old Sun said she believed the banned substance was in a bottle of water a stranger gave her before the race, which she unwittingly drank. She later changed her story saying that her friend, Yu Haijiang, an athlete from the Qinghai provincial team, had slipped the drug into her gooseberry juice without telling her. Yu's coach is a brother of Sun's coach, Wang Dexian, who was banned for a year after Sun tested positive.
Sun sued Yu in a local court in northeastern Heilongjiang province, demanding a public apology and 30,000 yuan in compensation.
In court Yu pleaded guilty, saying he had found an unmarked bottle containing some liquid in a public toilet beside Tiananmen Square. He told the judge he did not know what the bottle contained but he drank some anyway and soon afterwards he felt very energetic.
He said he believed it was a form of energy drink and slipped the rest of it into Sun's juice because he wanted to help her.
'I wanted to give her a hand. Sun is my idol and I am crazy about her,' he said in court.