China Sports World's Earthquake Response
Wednesday, 14th May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
As the death toll from the Wenchuan earthquake rises, and military and aid workers race to rescue trapped victims, China's sports celebrities are lining up with donations and words of encouragement and compassion. At an event Wednesday Beijing, all the national team members who train in Beijing showed their support for victims, according to this Xinhua report."We cannot go there in person but we will do our part in the relief," Liu Xiang said at the Beijing event.
Here are some of the donation amounts reported by Chinese media: 500,000 yuan ($71,395) each from Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, 110-meter hurdler Liu Xiang and diver Guo Jingjing; 100,000 yuan ($14,279) from Yi Jianlian and 980,000 yuan ($139,936) from the table tennis team. The State General Administration for Sport donated 5 million yuan ($714,000).
No Olympic venues were affected by the quake, but some sports competitions have been. According to China Daily, the Chinese soccer Super League postponed its Wednesday games until Saturday and the Chinese Football Association (CFA) is planning charity games to raise money for Sichuan. The paper also reported that the quake brought "Vision China Project, a nation-wide grassroots soccer event held by Asian Football Confederation, to an abrupt end."
Front page of Titan Sports, May 14.
The day after the quake, the Olympic torch relay's stop in Ruijin, Jiangxi province, began with a moment of silence; this observation will continue at each of the nearly 100 remaining cities on the route. The route remains unchanged, but ceremonies and celebrations are being scaled back, said BOCOG spokesperson Sun Weide.
In print media, the country's biggest sports newspaper, Titan Sports, ran front-page coverage of the quake's impact on the sporting world. The headline above reads: "Shaken: Right now, we are all from Sichuan." And in the large photo, torchbearers line up to put envelopes in a box marked: "Sichuan disaster area donations." The torch is scheduled to enter Sichuan on June 14.
Tags: Sichuan earthquake, Wenchuan earthquake
China Wins Seven Golds at Paralympic World Cup
Wednesday, 14th May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Chinese cyclist Liang Guihua
The event included four different sports (basketball, athletics, swimming and cycling), with 175 medals on offer. The 400 competitors came from 45 different countries. The event's Web site does not offer a full medal tally, but you can view results event-by-event here. The site reports that China won silver in women's wheelchair basketball, losing to the Netherlands 54-41 in the final.
The British swimmers set three new world records—Heather Frederiksen's 1:17.41 in the S8 100-meter backstroke; Sam Hynd's 4:31.33 in the S8 400-meter freestyle final; and Natalie Jones' 3:15.72 in the SM6 200-meter individual medley.
The Chinese paralympic team is feared for its unknowns, according to Matthew Pryor at the Times Online (UK). China won 63 golds and 141 medals overall at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, and is expected to be a major force at the 2008 games.
Image: Paralympic World Cup
Tags: athletics, cycling, paralympics, swimming, wheelchair basketball
Paralympic Athletes Kick @$$
Wednesday, 14th May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (1)
If you are out and about in Beijing these days, it's hard to go far with crossing paths with someone in the sports world. Recently, while braving the crowds and aggressive vendors in search of some bargains at the Silk Market, I noticed a couple of athletic-looking women in wheelchairs. It turned out that they were players on Australia's wheel chair basketball team, in town for a test event for the Paralympic Games taking place in Beijing September 6-17.I was seriously bummed to have missed the action, and even more disappointed when I went to the BOCOG Paralympics Web site to find no information on the recent event.
One Olympics fanatic I know is fond of saying "The Paralympics are like kissing your sister. It's something you do because you have to, but you don't enjoy it." The cities that host the Olympics and the corporate sponsors that are in the game for eyeballs and market share might feel that way, but anyone who truly loves sports should not.
I've personally had the opportunity to watch paraplegic men play ice sledge hockey in New York and blind teenagers play soccer in Kunming, at China's National Paralympic Games in 2007. They are playing a different game—blind soccer has more focus on dribbling skills and less on passing; sledge hockey hinges less on finesse and more on hard checks and brute force—but what these athletes accomplish is remarkable.
In both cases, the game that was borne of these physical limitations wasn't less than its able-bodied counterpart. It wasn't just different, either; it was a display of amazing physical accomplishments without the help of abilities that the rest of us think we can't live without. Those blind kids could dribble circles around a lot of soccer players I know who have 20/20 vision. And I wouldn't get on the rink with those hockey players without very good health insurance.
Paralympians are impressive from a pure athletic standpoint, but they also inspire in a way that able-bodied athletes don't. And for people who find themselves suddenly limited by the loss of a limb or one of their senses, they become role models who offer motivatioin for staying physically and mentally healthy despite this new limitation.
With the Olympic games, and able-bodied sports in general, being bigger and more heavily promoted, China Sports Today will continue to give them more coverage. But just know that when we don't cover the disabled sports world it's not because we are anything less than amazed at the athletic accomplishments on display. And when we do cover them, it certainly doesn't remind us of kissing our sisters.
Tags: blind soccer, paralympics, wheel chair basketball