Olympic champion detained for drunk driving
(AP)
Updated: 2006-07-24 19:06
A Chinese table tennis champion and an Olympic gold medalist in 2000 has been
fined after a late-night drunk driving incident, state media and a sports
official said Monday.
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Kong Linghui of China
returns a shot in the men's singles round three match against Zoltan
Fejer-Konnerth of Germany at the 48th World Table Tennis Championships in
Shanghai in this May 3, 2005 file photo. China's sport officials are
wondering how to punish Olympic table tennis gold medallist Kong who was
held by police for drink-driving after crashing his Porsche into a taxi,
Chinese media reported on July 24, 2006.
[Reuters]
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Kong Linghui, 31, crashed a Porsche Boxster into a Beijing taxi cab at 3:30
am Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency said on its Web site. Two women were also in
the Boxster when it crashed but no one was reported injured, it said.
Police who arrived at the scene detained Kong for drunk driving, suspended
his license for six months and fined him 1,800 yuan (US$80;euro180), said Qin
Shanglin, the director of the table tennis division of China's General
Administration of Sports.
"Kong is very regretful over what he has done," Qin said. He said the
administration had yet to decide how to penalize Kong but that the incident was
unlikely to affect his future career in the sport.
Kong garnered a gold medal in the men's singles and a silver in men's doubles
with Liu Guoliang during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Last year, he
and teammate Wang Hao took the men's doubles gold at the World Championships in
Shanghai.
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