Liu Xiang is out for the season, and will miss the 2013 World Championships in Moscow among other events. Further ahead, the 2015 World Championships will be held in Beijing and the 2016 Olympic Games will be held in Rio. In 27 Olympics, the oldest ever winner of the 110-metre hurdles was Mark McCoy who was 30 in 1992; Liu will be 33 in Rio.
Highlights of Manny’s three-RBI night on Thursday, including a home run at the 2:07 mark. The commentators go beserk, as do the fans, even though technically Manny’s team were playing away.
Great line from USA Today’s Ted Berg:
Say what you will about his carefree attitude and history of performance-enhancing drug use and that time he beat up the Boston Red Sox’s traveling secretary, but the guy can hit.
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.”
You know the script: down in the game heading into the final stages, in a stadium that holds 40,000, a stunning rally to complete the victory, grown men weeping tears of joy at the end. You’ve seen it in movies dozens of times, probably dreamed it hundreds more, but it’s not often you see a Chinese baseball team as the main protagonists. That, though, is exactly what happened this week at the World Baseball Classic in Fukuoka, Japan.
But there was one small difference. That stadium that holds 40,000? Empty.
Today’s links have a US feel – basketball, baseball and football. Check them out:
Jon Pastuszek at Niubball has the scoop on who could be the next NBA superstar to play in the CBA (clue: it’s a BIG name!)
Way to take the high road: The Diplomat gets high-class reaction to Dennis Rodman’s North Korea visit, while Rumors & Rants references Kim Jong-Il’s legendary round of golf.
Manny Ramirez could end up playing baseball in Taiwan and The Hall of Very Good is hoping that Taiwan’s legendary animators NMA work their Manny magic once again.
War Room Sports has an interview with Ron “Jaws” Jaworski, ESPN analyst and former Eagles QB and the man behind the Arena Football League’s push into China.
Wrestling has been in the Olympics for more than 2,600 years but looks almost certain to be axed from 2020 onwards after the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that wrestling no longer be included in the list of core sports. It has a final chance to save itself, but only one of baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, wakeboarding, wushu and now wrestling will be chosen for inclusion when the Committee meets again in May.
So who loses out and who will likely gain from this?
Continue reading Wrestling’s Olympic snub: winners and losers
The National Hockey League seems to have resolved its lockout – finally – but it will likely find that few people in North America care, let alone further afield. It left me wondering, though, whether a similar lockout could happen in China, or anywhere in Asia.
On the surface, a lockout of any league seems such an asinine proposition: the bottom line is that if there are no games, then there’s no revenue, and that’s bad for everyone (though you could argue that for clubs who lose money, it stops the rot for a time).
And the whole thing causes so much ill will among fans and media, not to mention all those who depend on the sport for their livelihood, such as arena workers and local restaurants, that it sets the sport back years.
