Bad timing for Guo and national diving championships
Wednesday, 20th May 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Why, oh why, does the Chinese sports world insist on squandering its best products? Today is the last day of the national diving championships in Xian, and "Diving Queen" Guo Jingjing appearing in her first individual springboard final in China since winning the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics. It's only her second time in competition since August--about 10 days ago, she won the gold at a FINA Diving Grand Prix event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Guo, the best female diver of all time and China's third biggest star after Yao Ming and Liu Xiang, makes her dramatic made-for-prime-time return today--at 2:30 p.m. Beijing time. Couldn't she at least dive during the lunch hour?Granted, tonight's prime time slots on China's sports channel, CCTV-5, are eaten up by some other popular events—AFC Champions League football/soccer, and Asian Cup table tennis—but surely there's a way to get better placement for the top Chinese athlete competing today. The whole national diving championship series has been relegated to afternoon TV. This is just silly. Not only is the series a chance to see gold medallists like Qin Kai compete, but it's a chance to glimpse emerging talent like Li Shixin (李世鑫), a promising young springboard diver who was dubbed the "Degree of Difficulty King" (yes, I know, a terribly unwieldy nickname) after nailing a 3.9 degree of difficulty dive in the men's finals yesterday.
Tags: diving, Guo Jingjing, Li Shixin, Qin Kai