Malaysia To Send Appeal To CAS On Integrity of COC Procedure

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 (Bernama) -- Malaysia will submit an appeal to the Ad Hoc Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS) committee in Incheon, South Korea after a Malaysian wushu exponent was said to have failed the dope test in the Asian Games. According to Malaysian Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, Malaysia need to challenge the decision of the Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) which claimed wushu exponent Tai Cheau Xuen had failed a dope test, because there were doubts about the procedure. Khairy said the move was necessary to safeguard the integrity and image of the country. "I view the case (failed dope test) seriously because Tai Cheau Xuen who had won a gold medal in wushu competition of the first day. The decision to strip her of the gold medal is serious," he said in a statement Tuesday. According to Khairy, there were doubts in the way the sample collecting process was conducted, especially the 'Chain of Custody' (CoC) by the organisers. "I was made to understand that the urine sample collected included samples from four other athletes at 5.06pm (Korean time) on Sept 20 and taken to the Doping Control Command Centre (DCCC) at 7.15pm on the same day. "The CoC document however, stated that the sample arrived at the DCCC at 11.10am and dated Sept 21 and no date registered on the sample. "The sample was later taken to the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and arrived at the lab at 1.29pm and the date registered was Sept 21. Since there was no date registered on the sample, there are doubts of the chronology of the sample's trail," said Khairy. He added that based on information, the Malaysian exponent's sample was in their possession for almost 16 hours. "This is where our doubts are raised over the integrity of CoC. Why take 16 hours? If we take the distance between the venue, DCCC and KIST, it does not make sense," he said. Also raising doubts is the transfer of CoC documents which contained different details that the official one. "If there were any changes or amendments, we were not notified. This is not the how the procedure should be because all details about the documents and the contents must be known to us," he said. --BERNAMA