Field hockey China's last chance for team gold
Friday, 22nd August 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Both the women's basketball and volleyball teams lost in semifinal games Thursday night,. The basketball team was handled easily by Australia, 90-56, sending coach Tom Maher's team to play Russia for the bronze on Saturday. Australia had a
balanced attack with five players scoring in double figures. China's high scorer was Bian Lan with 20. Australia held Miao Lijie, averaging 19.5 points going into the game, to just 10 points and two made field goals. The Australians face the USA Saturday in the final.
The volleyball team lost to Olympic favorite Brazil, 3-0, on Thursday. The first set was the hardest fought, with Brazil emerging 27-25. The Chinese team got progressively weaker, losing the next two sets 25-22 and 25-14. China plays Cuba for bronze on Saturday.
China's top team sport performance thus far in these Olympics was in beach volleyball, where its two women's pairs claimed silver and bronze.
Field hockey results page
Basketball results page
Volleyball results page
Field hockey team image: BOCOG
Tags: basketball, Beijing Olympics, field hockey, Miao Lijie, Olympics, Tom Maher, volleyball
How Do You Translate "Fast Break?"
Monday, 28th April 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
With so many foreign coaches of Chinese teams, and such a short history of foreign language education in China, we've often wondered about the challenges of coaching in translation. Tom Maher, head coach of the Chinese women's basketball team, shares some thoughts on this topic and more in the above video from FIBA, the international governing body of basketball. The video is a little hard to watch, with Maher's forehead cut off for much of the time, but includes some interesting comments.
Maher says about the language barrier:
"You can't communicate the same way. You don't realize how many pictures you paint with words. There's so many little phrases and analogies we make and you don't realize how much it is until you try to communicate. It's a little bit sad because you can't bridge that gap as well as you would like to."
His observations about China come at around 3 minutes into the interview. Also, having coached New Zealand and Australia at past Olympics, Maher has a good read on the international women's game. At about six minutes in, he breaks down the top teams contending for medals in August.
The answer to the question in the headline above, by the way, is 快攻 (kuàigōng), or "fast attack."
Tags: basketball, Olympics, Tom Maher