Nanshan Open this weekend in Beijing
Thursday, 7th January 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Local riders at Nanshan, January 2010
A video team from Niurenku.com, China's new action sports video Web site, went out to Nanshan for the local qualifiers a couple of weeks ago, and produced this video.
Local qualifiers for the 8th Red Bull Nanshan Open are Andrew Wilde, He Wei, Li Jie, Ming Ming, Li Penghuan and Jokey Tong. For more video of the event, check out Niurenku next week, or the Red Bull Open's Sina.com page. For information including schedule, results, directions and transportation, check out MellowParks.cn
Image courtesy of Mellow Parks
Tags: Mello Parks, Nanshan, Niurenku.com, Red Bull Nanshan Open, Sina.com, snowboarding
China basketball update
Thursday, 7th January 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The NBA is in full swing, and China's domestic league, the Chinese Basketball Association, started play a couple of weeks ago. Here are the top stories in the Chinese basketball world:Yao Ming's wife Ye Li is having a baby. Good thing we haven't done our "Top Sports Stories of 2010" yet. This child has been talked about since Yao married his sports school sweetheart, the 6'3" Ye Li. Chinese chat rooms are abuzz with speculation: How tall will the baby be? Will she be the first woman to play in the NBA? Will he be an NBA All-Star like Daddy? And can Chinese Internet users please, please be allowed to vote on a name? Here's a Xinhua article on the pregnancy news, along with some great suggestions for names (Yao'Neal is my personal favorite). Yao's been spending some time in China recently, which seems to be good news for the CBA team he is now a part owner of. The Shanghai Sharks are 6-2 and in fourth place in the league.
Yi Jianlian is back and beginning to show some of that potential Kiki Vandeweghe is always talking about. Since returning to the New Jersey Nets' lineup December 23, he has scored at least 22 points in four out of six games. He still needs to rebound more consistently, and the Nets still need to do some more winning, but he's proving that when healthy he is a valuable contributor to the worst team in the league.
The NBA's All-Star voting process is again at risk of an international incident, and China's at the center of it. The NBA declared Yi Jianlian ineligible for the game, knowing that despite barely playing this fall, he might still get enough votes from Chinese fans to make the starting lineup. But David Stern forgot to do the same for Houston Rocket Tracy McGrady, who is now cornering the China vote. Fans of more deserving players (aka, every starting guard in the Western conference) are understandably miffed at the Chinese voting bloc, and calls have been made for McGrady—who has only played in six games this season—to withdraw his name from consideration for the fan-picked starting lineup on the Western All-Star team.
A post is coming soon about the foreigners playing in China's domestic league this year. But two weeks in, the league already seems to be producing its usual bizarre personnel sagas. On Shanxi Zhongyu, the team that brought on Bonzi Wells for a short unhappy stint in the CBA, is reportedly bringing in NBA veteran Jerry Stackhouse to replace a player who supposedly had a fight with team "boss" Wang Xingjiang (Xinhua)
In Changchun, the Jilin Northeast Tigers (purchased this fall by Kenny Huang, a financier involved in buying a stake in the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers) ditched the disappointing Samaki Walker. Walker wasn't earning his keep, averaging 11 points and 11 points over seven games. His replacement, DeAngelo Collins, had 23 points and 16 rebounds in his first game, a loss to the Shanghai Sharks. According to a recent report in Xinhua, Collins has a history in the CBA, albeit a rocky one: "Collins left the CBA after he abused then head coach Wang Fei and was thrashed by his Chinese teammates during the 2007/2008 season in Zhejiang." Looks all's been forgiven, for now.
Tags: DAngelo Collins, Jiliin Northeast Tigers, NBA, Shanghai Sharks, Shanxi Zhongyu, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Yao Ming baby, Ye Li, Yi Jianlian