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Park hires foreign attorney ahead of doping hearing

Xinhua, January 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Korean swimming star Park Tae-hwan has hired a foreign attorney in preparation for his international doping hearing, according to Yonhap news agency Thursday.

Park's hearing will be held on Feb. 27 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Yonhap quoted a Korea Swimming Federation (KSF) official as saying that Park has enlisted the help of a Switzerland-based lawyer.

The Beijing Olympic champion's doping scandal was revealed Monday by Yonhap, and he and his agency blamed an injection given by a doctor at a Seoul hospital for the result. State prosecutors investigating charges of the doctor's professional negligence later said the injection contained testosterone, a substance banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

"Park has already hired a Korean lawyer in the ongoing case (over the hospital's legal responsibility)," Yonhap quoted a KSF official as saying. "In addition, he has brought on board a legal representative based in Switzerland with expertise in doping cases."

According to the KSF, FINA informed it and Park of the test result at the end of last October.

FINA collected Park's urine samples in early September, as Park was training for the Asian Games in the South Korean city of Incheon that opened later the same month.

FINA took A and B samples from Park. According to the KSF, the A sample tested positive, and Park was subsequently informed in October.

He asked for the analysis of the B sample, and it was tested for three days starting Dec. 2 at a WADA-accredited lab in Montreal. With a representative each from the KSF and Park's agency on hand, the B sample also came out positive. The KSF formally received the news in mid-December.

According to Yonhap, the organizing committee for the Asian Games confirmed earlier this week that Park passed three doping tests during the competition in late September.

According to prosecutors, officials from the hospital have claimed that they gave Park the injection to help boost his hormone levels but that they weren't aware that testosterone was a banned substance.

Park's camp has told the authorities that the swimmer repeatedly asked the hospital about the contents of the injection and that he was assured that the shot would be clean.

Park won a silver and five bronze at the Asian Games. Endi