Looking back: China's top 10 sports stories in 2009
Monday, 21st December 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The Bird's Nest is just one of a growing number of white elephants in China. Jinan's Olympic Stadium, above, was built for this year's National Games.
1. Chinese soccer league match fixing
Bribery, match fixing, betting—the Chinese Soccer League has long been tainted with some of sport's worst scourges. In November, police arrested 16 players, coaches and officials in an attempt to clean up the league. But observers say that a lot more still needs to be done.
2.Chinese swimming makes a splash in Rome
When Zhang Lin became China's first male swimming world champ in Rome this summer--winning the 800-meter freestyle in world record time--media quickly crowned him the Liu Xiang of the pool. But unlike Liu, Zhang had some backup from his teammates, as China put in its best ever performance at the world meet. With 4 golds and 10 medals, China was behind only the United States and Germany. Though Zhang Lin dominated the headlines, it was the women—led by Liu Zige and Zhao Jing--who were responsible for China's breakout. Female swimmers accounted for all but two of China's medals, and three of the four golds.
3. Diving judging scandal
China's national games diving competition was shaken up when one judge quit late in the competition, and then leveled accusations that results were fixed and that Zhou Jihong, head of the Chinese diving federation, calls all the shots.
4. Sports official spills secrets
Former national volleyball coach and long-time senior sports administration leader Yuan Weimin published his memoir, "Yuan Weimin: Storms of the Chinese Sports World" in October. Among the stories in Yuan's memoir that are making sports officials squirm is the tale of a shady vote-trading arrangement that put Belgium's Jacques Rogge at the head of the International Olympic Committee and brought the 2008 games to Beijing.
4. Empty Nest
The Beijing Olympics' iconic building, Beijing National Stadium--aka the Bird's Nest, aka a $400 million project that takes $70 million to maintain annually, aka a venue that required the relocation of thousands of families—has hosted only four events since the games ended 16 months ago (including an opera and a martial arts show that couldn't have possibly turned a profit). The situation is so bad that in the fall, the state took back operating control of the venue from its private owners.
5. Liu Xiang's return
A grimacing Liu Xiang limping around the Bird's Nest track was one of the most potent images of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The former Olympic and world record holder in the 110-meter hurdles, an athlete who rivals Yao Ming in prominence in China, was unable to run because of an injury to his Achilles tendon. More than a year later, he put doubts to rest about whether his career was finished, returning to competition in the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix, where he finished second in a 13.15-second photo finish.
6. China win's women's curling worlds
Curling? On a top 10 list? Stick with me here… When China's women's curling team won world championships last year, skipper Wang Bingyu and her teammates became instant media stars on the mainland. The current team is China's first generation of curlers, and if Canada doesn't figure out how to beat them at the 2010 Winter Olympics, curling will become only the second team sport in which China has won an Olympic gold medal (women's volleyball being the other, in 1984 and 2004).
7. Dealmaker Kenny Huang
Last May, news broke that a Chinese investor was nearing a deal to purchase a 15 percent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA franchise. That investor was Huang Jianhua, or Kenny Huang, who subsequently made a deal to promote youth baseball with the Chinese Baseball Association and to purchase a team in the Chinese Basketball Association. Last week, reports indicated that the Cavs purchase might go through before the end of the year. The lead on the deal is now Albert Hung, but Huang's still very much involved and seems to have dreams of a Chinese sports empire--keep an eye on this guy.
9. HSBC Champions
Shanghai's HSBC Champions golf tournament was elevated this year to World Golf Championship status, with $7 million in prize money. Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els finished first and second, and China got its last look at a squeaky clean Tiger Woods, who finished sixth. In his reporting on the event for ESPN, Shanghaiist editor Dan Washburn wrote that the event was well timed, as the inclusion of golf in the Olympics could provide a boost to the sport's popularity and official support here. HSBC Champions returns to Shanghai next year, which means it will take place alongside the Shanghai World Expo.
10. China disappears from the NBA
While Huang buys his way into the NBA, Chinese players are limping out. Yao Ming is missing the current season with a foot fracture, and the Nets' Yi Jianlian played just four games before sitting out at least the next 24 with injuries. The next great hope, Sun Yue, was dropped by the Lakers, then picked up and dropped by the New York Knicks. The NBA could really use another once-in-a-lifetime athlete like Yao right about now.
Related:
Zhang Lin, China's first male swimming champ
China Daily: Enthusiasm fades for Bird's Nest
LA Times on Yuan Weimin
ESPN.go.com: Olympics makes China major player in golf
Tags: Bird's Nest, curling, Dan Washburn, football, HSBC Champions, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, Liu Xiang, Liu Zige, NBA, soccer, Sun Yue, Yi Jianlian, Yuan Weimin, Zhang Lin
Gold medals and golf: What Olympic inclusion means for the game in China
Thursday, 15th October 2009 ~ Sam ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
2016 gold medalists? Young golfers practice their tee shots on the driving range at Lakeview Golf Club, Kunming
In a country where the Olympics are seen as the summit of sport, the ramifications of last Friday's International Olympic Committee (IOC) announcement that golf and rugby sevens are to be included in the 2016 and 2020 Games will be huge.
Golf, in particular, has had a short and startlingly fast development path in China. From the first golf club, Zhongshan Hot Spring Golf Club, which opened in China in 1984 to Mission Hills, home to the World Cup of Golf with its 12 courses designed by the top industry names such as Nick Faldo, José Maria Olazabal, Greg Norman and Ernie Els, golf in China has mimicked the economy in its rapid growth. The re-admittance of golf into the Olympics could speed up the game's growth in China even more by attracting money, government support and popular interest.
Asian golf in general is booming right now and most recently it was South Korean Y.E. Yang's PGA victory over Tiger Woods in the States that shocked the world. Mirroring Yang's career path many Chinese "first generation" golfers are also from under-privileged family backgrounds and are self-taught, picking up the game in their late teens just as Yang did. Chinese golfer Wu Ashun is an example of this phenomenon; determination and luck have enabled him to work his way up from a 19-year-old first-timer to the top amateur national player and now to a top three ranking on the Omega China Tour.
Wu, whose talent was discovered by a Hong Kong charity fund, is not satisfied yet however and says "I would rather be a small fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond." Describing the China Tour as a small tour is no understatement. Most of the golfers outside its top 20 struggle to break even on their travel and accommodation expenses.
It is a situation that Dan Washburn, author of the as yet unpublished book "Par for China," has likened the situation of China's pros to that of the early 20th century in America where professional golfers, who were mostly immigrants, were socially ranked somewhere between traveling salesmen and itinerant farmhands. Of course, the US PGA Tour has since grown to become the largest golf competition in the world and it will be interesting to see how the IOC's latest decision affects the growth of golf in the world's most populous nation.
"Par for China" is more than just a description of golf in China; it also uses the metaphor of the development of golf epitomizing the country's development as a whole. Washburn describes "golf as a barometer of economic growth" and certainly golf has only existed since Deng Xiaoping opened the country in the 1980's. A key issue for the rapidly developing China, both politically and within golf, is land usage rights. The official stance is that golf courses built on farmland are illegal, but on the outskirts of the wealthiest Chinese cities--where the rich of the city meet the poor of the country--the farmland is often obtained through backdoor connections and bribes to local officials. The property is then listed as housing estates and turned into a golf course.
Another aspect of golf that reflects a topical issue in contemporary China is the question of "accessibility for all" versus elitism. As promoted by the IOC, the decision to include golf in the Olympics will certainly bring added funding to the sport in countries such as China and India, but the question remains whether this money will go towards the development of the sport at the grassroots level where it is needed the most or if it will stretch the gap between China's rich and poor even more. The reality, though, is that golf will struggle to ever become the people's game due to exorbitant greens fees (an average round costs $152 USD, the most expensive in the world) exacerbated by the government's well-intentioned efforts to curb construction which decrease supply and put further upward pressure on prices.
China has seemingly been the fastest to rebound from the economic slowdown and the golf industry will likewise continue to flourish, with the China Golf Association predicting that by 2020 China will have 20 million golfers. Tiger Woods has stated that he intends to participate in the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and having witnessed last year what China can do when they focus their efforts on the Olympics, it would be no surprise to see a Chinese golfer challenging him for the gold.
Tags: Dan Washburn, golf, Mission Hills, Olympics, Omega China Tour, Y.E. Yang, Zhongshan Hot Spring Golf Club
HSBC Champions Gets World Champ Status
Tuesday, 28th April 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The HSBC Championship is now a World Championship Golf event, one of 100 so sanctioned by the International Federation of PGA Tours. The announcement was made at a Shanghai press conference earlier today. The event's prize money will increase from $5 million to $7 million, and Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia are both confirmed to compete.The HSBC Championship will take place November 5 through 8 at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, where it has taken place every year since it started. But IMG Golf global managing director Mark Steinberg said at the press conference that it will likely move to Mission Hills, perhaps as soon as 2011.
This post relies heavily on the reporting of Shanghaiist managing editor Dan Washburn, who attended the press conference and is the only English-language writer closely following China's golf scene. His full report is here.
Tags: Dan Washburn, golf, HSBC Championship, IMG, Mission Hills, Sheshan International Golf Club, Tiger Woods