BEIJING: China’s national table tennis team will give Olympic medallist Wang Hao counselling after here portedly got into a fight with a security guard for trying to stop him from urinating outside a karaoke club.

Local media reports last week quoted witnesses as saying that the twice Olympic singles silver medallist had emerged drunk from a karaoke club on Thursday and come to blows with the security guard when he tried to urinate outside the building.

“I am the famous Wang Hao! I am the world champion! Does it matter if I beat you?” shouted the 24-year-old, according to a witness quoted by the papers. China’s national table tennis team played down the incident and said that Wang, who also won a team gold at the Beijing Games, had merely had a heated exchange of words.

“There was no drunkenness or brawling. There was just an argument,” Monday’s Shanghai Morning Post quoted China national team manager Huang Biao as saying. “Because Wang is a celebrity, the story has been amplified.”

Wang, a marquee player in China’s premier table tennis league, would nonetheless face punishment from his army-affiliated club Bayi, the paper said, quoting the club’s coach Wang Tao, without providing further details.

Wang told state television the controversy had played a part in his loss during a regular league match over the weekend.

“It taught me that I have to be very careful about anything I say or do,” Wang told state broad caster CCTV.