Wang Meng [File photo]

China's most decorated winter Olympian, speed skater Wang Meng, has been given permission to return to competition after serving a 13-month ban for punching her team manager in a drunken brawl.

Wang, who has won four Olympic golds, was banned last August after the brawl with team manager Wang Chunlu, who had criticized her for coming back late to a training camp following a night out drinking with five other team mates.

The uncompromising 27-year-old has had several run-ins with officialdom in the past and missed the short track world championships in Shanghai in March but has been back in training in China's winter sports centre in Heilongjiang province.

"Based on Wang's petition and after reviewing her behavior over the past year, we announce the resumption of her qualification in taking part in both domestic and international events starting from the new season," an official with the Winter Sports Management Center of General Administration of Sport of China told state media.

Wang won 500 meters gold as well as a silver and bronze at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin before winning the 500m and 1000m titles and a 3000m relay gold in Vancouver four years later.

She had been expected to add to her haul at the next Winter Games in Sochi in 2014 until the brawl with her coach in Qingdao last year.

But Wang, who is known for her often dyed-red hair as well as her outspoken character, said she had turned a corner following the suspension.

"If I can train hard, I am sure I can make all those who supported me proud," she said in an interview published on the official website of the Chinese Olympic Committee.

"I do not need to prove anything to myself when I am standing on the ice rink again. But at that moment I can say thank you to everyone who helped. I did not fall. I'm back, and appearing in front of us all is a new, mature me."

She was previously kicked off the Chinese team in 2007 after criticizing her coach's tactics at the Asian Winter Games but returned six months later after a written apology.

Wang had also clashed with police while at a training camp in June last year at Lijiang, a scenic tourist spot in southwestern China.

Wang complained on her microblog that she and her team mates had been beaten up by security guards when celebrating a Dragon Boat Festival at a pub.

In 2010 she beat tennis star Li Na - winner of last year's French open - to the title of female athlete of the year.