Yang Yang: "To question my integrity is unacceptable"

BEIJING, April 23 (Xinhua) -- World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) vice president Yang Yang has slammed the report which linked China's donation to her election as WADA vice president.

"The report is misleading and defamatory and was presented without a shred of evidence to support it," said Yang on Tuesday. "I was not nominated to the position of Vice-President of WADA by the Chinese or any government. In fact, I was nominated by the sport-movement as an independent member of the WADA Executive Committee and Foundation Board."

However, a report from AP alleged China's donations to WADA "led to one of its Olympians being elected as one of the agency's vice presidents."

"Since I retired after a 23-year career in sports, it has been my honor to serve in different sports organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, International Skating Union and WADA," said China's first Winter Olympic champion.

Yang is also a member of Laureus Academy, a Global Ambassador for the Special Olympics and recently was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR.

"I have always tried to do the right thing for sports, because I strongly believe sports can unite people, not divide people as some are trying to do on this issue. To question my integrity is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated," she concluded.

WADA director general Olivier Niggli said at a news conference on Monday that many countries made contributions to WADA in support of its work and this was done "in total transparency."

"If you look at the numbers in the Asian region, we'll see that China is actually far from being the biggest contributor to WADA in anti-doping," said Niggli.

WADA had already made public the donation.