Do we like Lee Chong Wei?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Clean on harm, a good record of giving back, and one old doping ruling that found negligence but no intent to cheat.
Lee Chong Wei is Malaysia's badminton great: three Olympic silvers, a long stretch as world No. 1, and a rivalry with China's Lin Dan that had two countries glued to their screens. He retired in June 2019 and has since come back to the sport as a volunteer administrator, chairing the Badminton Association of Malaysia's performance committee.
The big blot is 2014. A sample from the world championships in Copenhagen tested positive for dexamethasone, and he copped an eight-month suspension. The BWF panel accepted the likely source was contaminated cordyceps capsule shells, found he did not intend to cheat, and called his negligence 'rather light'. His runner-up finish at that tournament was wiped.
This month he's had enough of the internet still calling him a drug cheat. He told reporters it's 'a pain I cannot put into words' and that he wants to set the record straight. Whether you think twelve years is long enough for the taunts to stop, the panel's findings are on his side.
Integrity off the court looks solid too. In 2018 he said a bookie had approached him and he turned it down, with the line that money is not everything to him. He urged teammates to steer clear of match-fixing.
The good stuff is real. In 2012 he started a fund for a young state player with leukemia, and in 2019 his foundation gave RM2 million to the national badminton body and the sports council. As a BAM official in 2026 he's been fronting the Lee Chong Wei Cup for young players and offering Lee Zii Jia a path back to the national squad.
So: would we back him? Yes. He's a quietly decent sporting hero with a doping ruling that found no intent and a long run of giving back. The only thing missing is a word on LGBTQ+ people, so we can't hand him full marks.