Lin, a former Harvard star who went undrafted out of college, gives up 14 inches and roughly a hundred pounds to Yao, the former No. 1 draft pick and recently retired center of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. He’s also an American by birth, the California-raised son of Taiwanese immigrants.

But none of that appeared to matter to China’s basketball fans after the second-year player exploded for a career-high 25 points in leading the New York Knicks to a victory over the New Jersey Nets on Saturday then went on to top that effort with 28 points in a win over the Utah Jazz on Monday.

Video clips of Lin’s performances have circulated widely on China’s popular Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, where the 23-year-old’s Chinese name, Lin Shuhao, ranked among the top 10 most searched terms Monday.

Images of the 6-foot-3-inch guard outperforming NBA veterans, including All-Star point guard Deron Williams, have garnered him global acclaim, including on Twitter, where the hashtag #linsanity has been trending. But he seems to made a particularly big splash with Chinese viewers, some of whom had begun to lose interest in the NBA following Yao’s retirement in July last year.

ESPN spoke with Lin following his latest scoring outburst, a contribution which gave the New York Knicks a two-game “Lin-ning Streak”:

Because, as improbable as it sounds, Jeremy Lin’s fingerprints were all over both victories.

That’s the same Jeremy Lin who was cut by two teams in the preseason.

It’s the same Jeremy Lin who played a grand total of 16 minutes in his first two weeks with the Knicks.

And it’s the same Jeremy Lin who spent six days in the D-League two weeks ago.

“I definitely couldn’t have imagined this,” Lin said after scoring a career-high 28 points and handing out eight assists in his first NBA start, a 99-88 win over the Jazz.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: basketball, Jeremy Lin, NBA, New York Knicks, online public opinion, sinaweibo, sports, yao ming
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Transplanting football to China has never been as easy as the transplanters hoped. Mao was a basketball buff, which is one reason why you’ll find a hoop in just about every village from Tibet to the Yellow Sea. In football, by contrast, the pads and balls and rhythms are idiosyncratic, and, for a while, the league put its hopes on trying to cultivate a Yao Ming for football, a Chinese national who might be able to cut it in the N.F.L., and bear on his (presumably ample) shoulders the hopes and merchandising money of the motherland. At one point, the league even helped train some big-boned Chinese soccer players to make the switch to field-goal kickers. But none of them reached the N.F.L. (I encountered one of the aspiring kickers a few years ago, after he’d played his first minutes of actual football, and he told me that he’d rapidly discovered that the “opponent will try to disturb you when you try to kick a goal.”)

The N.F.L. is no longer looking to groom its Yao Ming. Richard Young, the managing director of N.F.L. China, told me that he now compares his sport’s future to that of coffee. “Years ago, I took a Chinese friend to try a cup of coffee, and he choked down this black liquid and said, at the end of it, ‘Richard, Chinese people will never love coffee.’ And you know what? To this day, they still don’t have the big barista machines at home. But they’ll gladly go to Starbucks, and Starbucks is all over China. So coffee is not going to replace tea, and we’re not going to overtake soccer, but it doesn’t mean we can’t build a good business.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in November on the NFL’s latest attempt to bring American football to China through an interactive marketing event in Shanghai.

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Post tags: Beijing, football, foreign sports, NFL, sports, Super Bowl
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In a country so proud of its global stature, football is a painful national joke. Perhaps because Chinese fans love the sport madly and want desperately for their nation to succeed at it, football is the common reference point by which people understand and measure failure. When, in 2008, milk powder from the Chinese company Sanlu was found to have been tainted with melamine, causing a national scandal, the joke was: “Sanlu milk, the exclusive milk of the Chinese national football team!”

…

Solving the riddle of why Chinese football is so awful becomes, then, a subversive inquiry. It involves unravelling much of what might be wrong with China and its politics. Every Chinese citizen who cares about football participates in this subversion, each with some theory—blaming the schools, the scarcity of pitches, the state’s emphasis on individual over team sport, its ruthless treatment of athletes, the one-child policy, bribery and the corrosive influence of gambling. Most lead back to the same conclusion: the root cause is the system.

A recent crackdown on football corruption offers little solace; it simply mirrors the pyrrhic campaigns against official corruption elsewhere in China. A mid-level functionary in China’s state security apparatus puts it candidly: “You know all those problems with society that you like to blame on China’s political system? Well it really is like that with football.”

See also previous coverage of football in China, including outrage at a November loss to Iraq which will likely prevent the national team from qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.

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Post tags: corruption, football, soccer, sports
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Yin Bo, one of China’s most prominent soccer journalists, summed up the frustration in a pointed column for the sports section of the Sina.com portal:

If we lost to Japan or Korea, both of which play better than us, or Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which have very deep pockets, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for us to accept the result … but it’s Iraq who defeated and double-killed us, Iraqis who haven’t completely extricated themselves from a war and can’t even play on their home field.

The Chinese public’s passion for their national team’s history of mediocre soccer is a curious thing. In its history, China has qualified for only one World Cup, in 2002. China’s home-grown professional league enjoys pockets of popularity, but is often overshadowed by the misbehavior of its bratty stars — most of whom also play for the national team. This is despite the Chinese state — and companies seeking to curry favor with it — spending vast sums on the the Chinese Football Association, or CFA.

So how, then, did China’s loss to Iraq turn into one of the most angry and sustained popular discussions on China’s internet in recent months? Because, like so many other recent scandals in China, the national team’s World Cup failure is, in large part, a story about corruption.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corruption, football, iraq, soccer, sports, World Cup
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According to Yao, who retired on July 20, he has enrolled in the Antai College of Economics & Management, although he will also study finance and journalism. The school has prepared a tailor-made chair for the supersize student.

“I chose Jiao Tong University instead of private tutors, because I want to feel the atmosphere on campus,” Yao told reporters Monday.

However, the giant will spend more time in private one-to-one classes in order to reduce disturbing the lives of other students ….

Li Detian, a maths student and basketball player, said it would not be unfair for Yao to receive special treatment.

“He is the pride of China. His good work in the NBA has earned him the special treatment,” Li said. “I hope Yao can play for our university team, or at least come to teach us some techniques.”

See also the announcement of Yao’s retirement from the NBA and the subsequent angst about China’s ability to produce an heir—”We can either choose to blame the gods and whine about our misfortune or we can step up to the plate and train the next generation of basketball talent”—via CDT.

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Post tags: basketball, Shanghai Jiaotong University, sports, yao ming
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Wu Jingbiao captured the men’s 123-pound division and Tian Yuan was first in the women’s 106-pound division.

Wu retained his world title by lifting 293 pounds in the snatch and 351 in the clean and jerk for a combined 644 pounds. China’s Zhao Chaojun won the silver medal with a 626 total. Valentin Hristov of Azerbaijan took the bronze at 608.

Tian snatched 198 pounds and clean and jerked 258 for a winning combined total of 456. Panida Khamsri of Thailand finished second at 412 and Nurdan Karagoz of Turkey was third at 403.

© melissa chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: drug testing, gold medal, Paris, sports, weightlifting
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One Beijing taxi driver compared his passion for cricket duels to a Spaniard’s love of bullfighting. “The main difference is that cricket fighting is much less dangerous,” he said. (Insect-rights advocates take note: Combat seldom causes injuries, save for the occasional severed antennae, and losers are generally tossed onto the sidewalk and allowed to roam free until a November frost, or a pedestrian’s foot, puts an end to their chirping.)

There is, though, a nefarious side to the cricket craze: illegal back-room matches that draw legions of gamblers. In late September, the police in Jiangsu Province raided one such parlor, arresting 79 people and seizing 100 prized fighters. According to the police, cricket owners would bet 10,000 renminbi, or nearly $1,600, on each bout. Wagers by spectators exceeded 100,000 renminbi ….

Even if digital scales are now used to sort fighters into weight classes separated by one-hundredth of a gram, cricket trainers still follow many of the rules and recommendations laid out in a 13th century how-to guide written by Jia Sidao, the Southern Song prime minister whose obsession with crickets supposedly led to the dissolution of the empire.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: animal rights, cricket, history, sports, traditional culture, traditional entertainment
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For nearly a decade, China has been enthralled by the cult of Yao spun by Communist Party propagandists and corporate sponsors: the winner, the gentle giant, the favorite son. His image was ubiquitous here, and the public basked in his glow even as other Chinese players in the N.B.A. sputtered.

Yet his retirement is forcing many Chinese to acknowledge that their country has relied on Yao alone for victory and national pride, ignoring shortcomings in the state sports system that leave China facing a future bereft of N.B.A. and Olympic basketball glory.

“We can either choose to blame the gods and whine about our misfortune or we can step up to the plate and train the next generation of basketball talent,” Zhang Weiping, a basketball commentator and former national team member, wrote in an editorial last week.

CBS Sports recommends that, in searching for a replacement, China should focus on training smaller, faster players. ESPN holds a 5-on-5 roundtable to size up Yao Ming’s career and impact.

Meanwhile, fellow NBA star Kobe Bryant, currently in China, praised Yao on the eve of his retirement:

Bryant, in Yao’s home city of Shanghai as part of an Asian tour, said the Houston Rockets centre had inspired Chinese youngsters to dream about playing basketball at the highest level.

“He opened doors for young people in China to believe it’s possible to become an NBA player. That all started with Yao,” the Los Angeles Lakers guard told reporters.

Bryant was speaking one day before 2.29-metre (7ft 6in) Yao is widely expected to announce his retirement in Shanghai after battling a series of injuries.

The five-time NBA title-winner, 32, said Yao’s impact was far greater than that of the previous wave of European imports to the NBA.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: basketball, NBA, sports, yao ming
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Yao had cast doubt on his return to the NBA last month when he admitted to the possibility he may not play again because of his ongoing injury problems.

“I don’t know if I would join some champion team in the future,” the China Daily quoted him as saying when asked about leaving a new-look Rockets team. “I don’t even know if I can play again.”

However, Yao said the prospect of playing in front of his baby daughter Amy gave him extra motivation to continue his injury-plagued career in the NBA.

“I wish she could watch me play and even win a championship,” he added. “Not only see through video highlights how her dad played. She is definitely a big motivation for me to continue, although my foot still needs lots of treatment.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: basketball, NBA, sports, yao ming
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Behind her advances were a series of reforms to the Chinese Tennis Association that began in 2009. They managed to break the old pattern of state-controlled training and selection, and opened the way for national team players to “fly solo.” Now, players can choose their own coaches and group teams, decide when to compete internationally, and independently seek out their own brand endorsements ….

Traditionally, China’s sports system leverages national strength to seize gold medals, employing the resources of an entire nation to support a small number of athletes. These select few begin their arduous training as children, and go on only if they win. If one looks at the Olympic medal count alone, the strategy appears a resounding success. But not only is this method a fundamental violation to the spirit of public participation in sports, it’s also low in efficiency. Athletes trained under the juguo system are only capable of excelling at one thing ….

If the economic juguo system persists, particularly in the form of economic control policies, not only will there be problems with future returns on investment, but financial risks will also be difficult to control. With capital controls becoming harder and harder to maintain, financial crises are inevitable.

Chinese tennis showed us the way out: go with the tide, and complete financial liberalization reforms. Of course, they must be firm but appropriate, giving full consideration to the conditions and order of marketization. Otherwise, inappropriate financial liberalization could also lead to a financial crisis. The failure of professional soccer in China should serve as ample warning.

See also CDT’s coverage of Li’s victory and Evan Osnos’ New Yorker article, “Li Na and the Politics of Saying Thank You“, which describes the same reforms referred to by Huang:

Li rejoined the national tennis team after her wedding, but then left again in December of 2008, along with three other Chinese players, under a novel deal called a “fly alone” agreement. The deal, signed with the Tennis Management Center of the General Administration of Sport of China, allowed Li and the others to choose their own coaches and set their own competition schedules. It also reportedly slashed the share of her winnings that she gave the state from sixty-five per cent to twelve per cent ….

State television plastered images of her win with the phrase “Li Na’s success was a result of the continuous reform of the Chinese sports system.” But Chinese fans were not quick to agree. “When she was fighting against the system, no one spoke for her; when she was training hard, no one paid attention. Now that she has succeeded by herself, she makes you proud all of a sudden?” the actress Ke Lan wrote.

At a post-match press conference, [Li] bantered in English with reporters, and made a point of thanking Sun [Jinfang, head of the Tennis Management Center]: “Without her decision to reform, I wouldn’t have been able to perform as I did today.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: financial reform, June 4th, Li Na, sports
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