Category Archives: Badminton
Lin Dan continues quest for immortality in Rio
Weekly Wrap: Optimistic Americans, Struggling Print Journos and Manny’s Dreadlocks
Tennis, baseball, both forms of football, badminton, athletics and mahjong all feature in this week’s wrap…
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World Top 50 Most Marketable Athletes: 8 Brits, 0 Chinese
Lists like SportsPro magazine’s Most Marketable Athletes [full list below] are equal parts inspired and enraging. I love the fact that Brazilian Paralympian Alan Oliveira (no. 17) is included, combining his age, talent and good looks with the undoubted boost to Brazilian sport that the next World Cup and Olympics will bring, almost as much as I hate the selection of Seth Jones (39), who is largely unknown even within his own sport, and, at 18, may not even play a single NHL game in the next three years even if he later develops into an All-Star.
Continue reading World Top 50 Most Marketable Athletes: 8 Brits, 0 Chinese
Weekly Wrap: Yao Ming’s death and Other Stories
Yao Ming is sadly no longer with us. The seven-week-old giraffe in Houston named after the Chinese NBA star was put down after a month-long bone infection couldn’t be treated. Sorry for leading with a tearjerker – I promise the other stories will be more cheerful!
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Weekly Wrap: Michael Phelps & T.I.C.
Phelps loses his balls
“T.I.C. This is China. It’s just a completely different world over here.”
That was Michael Phelps’ assessment after playing golf with Matt Kuchar at Mission Hills golf club in Haikou. He kept he temper remarkably well, despite, hole-after-hole, losing his ball to Chinese fans hellbent on snagging a souvenir. Admittedly, as the video shows, he’s not the straightest hitter, but even when he nails the middle of the fairway, the ball is gone by the time he gets there.
“Someone picked it up and had a pen for me to sign it.”
Friday Fun: Myanmar stacks the deck with wildcards
It’s normally Myanmar’s politics that get the international spotlight, but this week it has been their bizarre sporting choices. The new Burmese capital Naypyidaw will host the 27th Southeast Asian Games later this year and, perhaps fittingly, they’ve chosen some new sports. Vovinam, tarungderajat, kempo and chinlone are all on the agenda and if you haven’t heard of them, you’re not alone.
In fact, most of the other nations are pissed.
Charoen Wattanasin, vice president of the Thai National Olympic Committee, complained that regulations allow for eight traditional sports, not the 14 selected by the hosts:
“Nine out of the 14 are martial arts. They are — well, I can’t even remember their names.”
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