Results tagged “athletes”

Hint: Tiger Woods is not one of them. Check out the whole list here.

Attention, all y’all who want to capture some of that Olympic vitality: 5,000 official condoms distributed to athletes during the Beijing Olympics are finding their way to the auction block November 29 for…ahem…hard core collectors. The bidding price for the condoms, in special packages printed with “faster, higher, stronger,” (the Olympic motto), will start at 1RMB. Officials believe that most of the condoms were not in fact used, but taken home by participants as souvenirs - let’s hope these are the ones up for bid.

    

Last week, China's diving team announced that it would skip the upcoming FINA Grand Prix in Fort Lauderdale due to swine flu fears.

• China database to track children [BBC] "China is setting up a DNA database to help trace missing children, as the authorities struggle to tackle people trafficking. By the end of the month, a network of more than 200 DNA centres is due to be set up. Thousands of children in China are stolen or sold each year."
• More on Beijing doping: cyclist, runner, walker join list [LA Times] "Five down, one to go." On the list of athletes at the Beijing Olympics who doped: German cycler Stefan Schumacher, Croation 800-meter runner Vanja Persic and Greek race walker Athania Tsoumeleka.
• China announces regulations for financial information in settlement with US, Europe [AP] "Beijing announced rules that ease controls on foreign financial information providers Thursday under an agreement with the U.S., Europe and Canada, but said those already operating in China must apply for permission to continue. The rules eliminate a requirement that foreign providers must work through a Chinese agent and reduce the amount of information they must disclose about their operations."

Forbes has released its list of the Top 10 Chinese celebrities, which surveys the who's who of China to rank them based on personal income, public influence, internet reach and commercial value.

First we heard that hurdler Liu Xiang (刘翔）would not likely recover from injury in time for world championships in August of this year, setting instead a target of returning for the Shanghai Grand Prix in September. Now, Team Liu seems to be prepping fans for the possibility that the one-time world record holder and former Olympic champion—whose failure to compete was China's biggest disappointment last August—might soon hang up his spikes for good.

Michael Phelps (菲尔普斯) has signed the biggest ever endorsement contract for a Western celebrity in China, claims DMG Entertainment group, the agency that reportedly signed him to a seven-figure deal with Mazda.

This summer, China was accused of using underage gymnasts in the Olympics. Now they've caught their own basketball players fudging their ages the other way. Thirty-six players in the China Basketball Association (almost 15% of the league) were found guilty of "age-shaving" Wednesday, and had their names submitted to FIBA, the governing body of international basketball, and the Asian Basketball Association. The identities of the offending parties were not made public.

After a week-long trip to see doctors in the U.S., Chinese gold medal hurdler Liu Xiang (刘翔) has returned to Shanghai with his coach Sun Haiping and is set to undergo an operation soon. Prior to this trip, a conservative approach had been advised for the Achilles injury that led to Liu's shock withdrawal from the Beijing Olympics and Sun had always maintained that surgery would be a "last resort". Medical experts in the U.S. have advised that surgery is not just safe, but necessary to remove the three calcifications that have occurred between his bone and tendon, and Liu himself has said (through his coach) that he is willing to do "whatever it takes" to ensure he gets back on track.

Bronze medalist windsurfer Shahar Zubari and Israel's only medal recipient at the Beijing Olympics has stirred up a storm of controversy after referring to the Chinese as "scum" in an interview with 7 Yamim, a weekend supplement of the mass-market daily Yedioth Ahronoth. The comments made by the 20 year old athlete led the Chinese embassy in Israel to cancel the party it had planned in honour of Israeli athletes who had participated in the Beijing Games, and sent Israel's Culture, Science and Sport Minister Raleb Majadele scrambling to send an apology to the Chinese ambassador:

"I would like to condemn the irresponsible remarks made by Shahar Zubari," Majadele wrote.

Continue reading "Israel's lone medallist Shahar Zubari calls the Chinese "scum""

Oksana Chusovitina: A mother's love knows no bounds and this is fully exemplified in the life story of Oksana Chusovitina, only one of a handful of women to stay in competitive gymnastics after motherhood. She formerly represented the Soviet Union and her native Uzbekistan and has competed for Germany since 2006. When her son Alisher was diagnosed in 2002 with leukemia and doctors in Moscow could not guarantee quality care, Chusovitina accepted an offer of help from the head coaches of the Toyota Cologne club and moved to Germany. With her competition prize money and funds raised by members of the international gymnastics community, she was able to secure treatment for her son at the University of Cologne's hospital while training with the German team. Chusovitina is the only female gymnast ever to compete in five Olympic Games, and won a silver in the vault final at the Beijing Games.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

In honor of the Beijing Olympics, Shanghai’s #1 fag hag scoured the city for info on gay sports. Everyone knows a large gay contingent can be found daily at our most popular gyms. However, did you realize Shanghai also hosts gay swimming (we’re sure Michael Phelps or Zhang Lin are welcome), badminton, table tennis, volleyball and even kungfu!

China's star hurdler Liu Xiang, who won gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics, pulled out of the Beijing Olympics yesterday, disappointing hordes of fans. The Wall Street Journal talks to the man on the streets to find out what they think.

              

Has Shrek always borne a striking resemblance to Yao Ming? Or is it the other way around? These movie posters of Olympic athletes, (well, the Chinese team and Michael Phelps) were posted on Chinese web site Mop.com and brought to our attention by Chinasmack.

Benjamin Boukpeti: Picked up the first medal for Togo bronze in the men’s slalom kayak event but the French-born sportsman has only been to Togo once as a child to visit his paternal grandmother! According to Reuters, Boukpeti "only decided to compete for Togo when it became clear he was too old to make it into the far more competitive French team".

Both Xinhua and Channel News Asia have run stories about the Beijing delicacy Peking duck as a favorite amongst athletes staying in the Olympic Village. A spokeswoman for the Olympic Village reported at a press conference that the supply of the duck dish was doubled from 300 birds per day to 600 to satisfy the demand of the 10,000 or so athletes living the village.

Jim Buzinski of Outsports.com reports that out of the record 10,708 athletes attending the Beijing Olympics, only 10 of them are openly gay — and all of them are women except for Australian diver Matthew Mitcham. The nine out women are: Judith Arndt (Germany, cycling), Imke Duplitzer (Germany, fencing), Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg (Norway, handball and a lesbian couple), Natasha Kai (U.S., soccer), Lauren Lappin (U.S., softball); Victoria "Vickan" Svensson (Sweden, soccer); Rennae Stubbs (Australia, tennis) and Linda Bresonik (Germany, soccer). In addition, there is also U.S. softball player Vicky Galindo, who has identified herself as a bisexual and was interviewed by the Advocate. In Athens in 2004, there were 11 openly gay athletes while in Sydney there were only seven.

During the Sydney Olympics, 70,000 condoms were distributed to athletes for their use but they ran out so fast that another 20,000 had to be brought in. Learning their lesson, officials for the Athens games provided 130,000 condoms free of charge to athletes. At the meticulously manicured 66 hectare Olympic village, BOCOG officials have done such a wonderful job preparing everything from Peking Duck to Chinese massage, calligraphy lessons, live Chinese folk music and armies of smiling volunteers to keep athletes entertained that they decided they could do without the condom gift-bags this year. Alcohol has been banned in the village (with all the wonderful Chinese tea that you can have, why would you want to booze?) and the inhouse 90s pop disco shuts down at midnight, leading Catherine Bremer of Reuters to declare in this amusing article — "the evening entertainment sucks". We also loved this complaint made in broken English by Kazakh canoeing trainer Alexandr Davydov which pretty much sums up what life is like within the village:

“Is too many smiley and good behavior. No TV and no frozen... Just sitting in the apartment each night...”

From AP:

A Chinese man attacked the two Americans -- a man and a woman and their Chinese tourist guide -- around 12:20 p.m. on the second level of the Drum Tower, a popular tourist attraction in north Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Continue reading "Chinese man kills an American tourist, injures another, and leaps to his death at Beijing's Drum Tower"

• Yesterday, four Tibetan activists managed to unfurl two protest banners (including one that read "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet") and other Tibetan flags near the Bird's Nest. The flags were up for close to an hour before they were taken down by authorities and the activists detained, say Students for a Free Tibet.
• This loin-stirring ad featuring US swimming star Amanda Beard in her birthday suit was meant to be unveiled in a press conference by animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), but the conference was canceled after a midnight visit by the PSB to PETA representatives at their hotel. Undeterred, Beard went ahead to hold a small protest outside the Olympic village by holding up her poster.
• Less than 24 hours before his flight to Beijing, Olympic speed skating champion and Team Darfur founder Joey Cheek has had his Chinese visa revoked.

Is the air quality at the Beijing airport really that bad? The New York Times has the story (and some photos):

As revealed by Qilu TV, the top three earners in the Chinese sports world ranked according to the sum of their basic annual pay, prize money, endorsement and appearance fees are Yao Ming (RMB250 million), Liu Xiang (RMB70 million) and Guo Jingjing (RMB15 million). These are followed by Sun Jihai (RMB10 million), Shao Jiayi (RMB6 million), Dong Fangzhuo (RMB4.8 million) and Zheng Zhi (RMB4.5 million).

Three weeks before Beijing hosts the Olympics, two weeks after Zheng Jie stormed Wimbledon, the same week that Yao Ming returned to action with the Chinese national team and Sports Illustrated China puts on its cover a tennis player who hasn’t played a professional match in four years and never won a Grand Slam. Apparently in the magazine’s Olympics-run-up newsroom, great legs beat greatness.

In this interview with the South China Morning Post, Yao Ming fields questions related to his injury, his chances of playing at the Olympics and the Sichuan earthquake.

are quite open about why."

Yao Ming is not the best singer. And neither is any of his team mates from the Houston Rockets as this latest video of them spreading the holiday cheer with their own rendition of Jingle Bell Rock shows (Click here to watch them sing 12 Days of Christmas). But we love it!