Expelled Winter Olympic champ returns home
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Xinhua, November 6, 2011
Wang Meng arrived at the capital city Beijing from Canada early Saturday morning as rumors whispered that the most decorated winter Olympian of China is possibly coming back to the rink three months after she's kicked out of the national team.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist was expelled from the Chinese short track team for a fist-flying brawl with world champion-turned team manager Wang Chunlu in early August.
The manager said Wang Meng violated the team disciplines and punched her first when the "talk" went awry, while Wang Meng admitted her failure to return to the team before a curfew but said the manager threw the first punch.
After her removal from the nationals, Wang Meng had been back home in North China's Heilongjiang province and trained with the provincial team where the 27-year-old started her heroical skating campaign in short track.
Over a month ago, she was seen in a professional base in Calgary, Canada, training with a local team, and was visited by team manager of the Chinese nationals Liu Hao.
"I'm back to show the national team and my former coaches and directors that I'm truely regretted on what I'd done wrong, and that I've deeply reflected and is now ready to come back as a new person," said Wang Meng, who had been suspended since the incident during a summer training camp in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao on July 24.
Wang was widely suspected to hit the track again at the sport's national championships starting later this month in Changchun, capital city of North China's Jilin province, as well as January's National Winter Games hosted in the same place, since no specific qualifications are requested to both of the events.
The hot-tempered skater, who won four golds, one silver and one bronze in the two Olympics, however, said she's not awared what's waiting ahead for her and declined to respond to any suspicion.
"My only concern is that I should be back home as soon as I can and join my provincial teammates in training to get myself well tuned," Wang said at her arrival.
Asked about the possibilty of Wang's coming back, Zhao Yinggang, director of China's winter sports administrative center, gave an evasive answer.
"There's no timetable to call Wang Meng back in the competitive rink, though a skater needs to compete in one or two stops of the ISU series, as we all know, to get qualified for next year's world championships," said Zhao, who's supervising the ongoing ISU Cup of China figure skating Grand Prix here on Nov. 4-6.
"Whether Wang will compete in the national short track championships and the National Winter Games is a decision up to her provincial team, not us," he added.
The 2012 world short track speed skating championships will be held in Shanghai early next year.
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