In this candid record provided by one Youku Paike, Zhou’s mother was surrounded by media reporters, pushing for explanations on why her daughter only thought about parents but not THE country. (Youku Paike’s camera was fixed on Zhou’s parents, and only recorded surrounding reporters’ voices.)

The severely hurt mother was defending her daughter with all her power – by simply telling the truth. She said, “(When Zhou started training, all we as parents wanted was for her) to have a skill to find a job in the future, to support herself.” “I never dare to think of this day (when she became an Olympic gold medal winner)!

Pressed by one particular brainwashed female reporter, Zhou’s mother retorted back: “This really hurts us. How can they think this way?” She repeated her astonishment: “I really can’t understand why you think this way.” Simple, direct and powerful from a mother defending her beloved daughter.

The mother said she would never ever “gamble” her daughter for her own good. As disclosed, Zhou tries hard to help her parents, but the mother had no intention to use a single penny that her daughter earned – with tears and blood in my opinion. “Don’t you have a child yourselves? …It’s out of her love… I don’t want to use one single penny…” the mother cried bitterly.

Could someone pass along a Marxism booklet to the journalist and tell her to have some respect?

I’ve been talking with friends about Yu’s words since, I don’t know, he said them. In the midst of the sacred and low-carbon two sessions that made public transport in Beijing even crowder, you really can’t avoid the news, can you?

A little recap:

Zhou won gold in the 1,500-meter race and the 3,000-meter relay in her Olympic debut. After her 1,500 win Feb. 20, a breathless Zhou told China Central Television: “It’s my dream. After winning the gold I might change a lot, become more confident and help my parents have a better life.”

She thanked her coach and teammates, but never mentioned the state-run sports system in which she had trained as an athlete for much of her life.

It’s right to respect and thank your parents but you also have to have the country in your heart. The country must come first. Don’t just talk about your parents,” said Yu Zaiqing, deputy director of China’s General Administration of Sport, in widely reported comments earlier this week.

Hate to buck the trend, but if put in context, I actually think Yu Zaiqing’s country-first-parents-later talk is understandable.

Born in 1951, Yu was educated and has been working in the Communist China that favors collectivism to an extreme. And these days, sports happen to be one of a few sectors left where collectivist education and ideology still permeates in the People’s Republic.

I was born in the early 80s. Since the elementary school, the picture of an athlete shedding tears while the Five-stars-red Flag raising slowly with China’s national anthem playing has been imprinted in my brain. It’s a cult-like situation for Chinese athletes, patriotic or nationalistic as you may describe. I would expect them to thank the country anyway, and I think most of my fellow compatriots can relate to this feeling.

I mean, it could be like “I’d like to thank my parents, my leaders in the sports bureau and the country’s great sports system. But that sounds a bit unnatural to be honest. It’s not in the tradition. The traditional sequence would be “the country, the leaders and your parents.”

OK, I know what you’re thinking. Fuck the sequence and all that. So in most cases these days in my observation, athletes would rather thank their supporters, which I presume is done in part to avoid the crap. I didn’t really pay attention, and wonder what Wang Bingyu said after they crowned World Women’s Curling Championship last year, considering they didn’t really have any supporters back then.

Unlike Yu Zaiqing, Zhou Yang was born in 1991, and pretty much avoided the collective China and hasn’t trained in the taxpayer-funded sports system for very long. True, we still have “red songs” and “red SMS messages” until today, but most young Chinese couldn’t care less about them or even enjoy making fun of them.

I think Yu, being a sports official and a party boss, to some extent believes in what he said, and the idea of thanking the country first is not entirely posturing to him. There’s something that people like Yu wants to save and protect.

Take Luo Chaoyi, director of Gymnastics Administrative Center under China’s National Sports Bureau. In a recent interview with China Youth Daily, Luo said the age of Dong Fangxiao is her personal matter and the fact that Dong’s age had been shifted 3 years younger after her retirement was Dong and her family’s own practice.

According to the International Gymnastics Federation’s findings, Dong registered a birth date of January 20, 1983 at Sydney but when accredited to act as “secretary” at vault at the 2008 Beijing Games, had declared her birth date as January 23, 1986.

To put it simple, Luo told a blatant lie. But he did so trying not to jeopardize the National Gymnastic Association and, probably only to the likes of him, the country’s image.

What Yu and Luo said can tell you how unusual and unsophisticated these Chinese sports officials are, to say the least. And in the case of Yu, how stupid the Political Consultative Conference can be.

The golden rule for them: say nothing. But we can expect more of these in the future.

Links and Sources:

• Danwei: Lesson learned, Zhou Yang thanks the country first
• Youku Buzz: Don’t Politicalize the Unnecessary Controversy
• AP: Skater’s gaffe highlights politics of China sports
• South China Morning Post: Skater’s gold tarnished by petty posturing (subscription req’ed)
• WSJ China Real Time: Thanks to Mom or the Motherland?

“Chinese gymnastics team have won 17 golds in the previous Olympic Games, to which gymnasts from Hubei province contributed seven of them. Given the current situation in Hubei, how can I not be worried?” said Huang.

The head coach also noted that Chinese gymnastics has been suffering from “inner attrition” very badly in the last ten years. The new-found talent famine, according to Huang, is due to some structural problems and infightings [among teams at various levels].

“That China won 6 golds at the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Champs is only superficial, you all can’t see the crisis behind it!”

Huang said these words one week after the International Gymnastics Federation issued their decision to strip a gold medal won by team China at the Sydney Games after finding out there’s a “presumed violation of the age limit for participation” in the case of Dong Fangxiao, a female gymnast.

It suggests that the National Gymnastics Association may has decided to tackle the age problem in the country to prepare for competitions years after. For a country that has been supposedly getting ahead by staging underage gymnasts since, let’s say 2000, it could cost them golds at least in London.

The thing in Chinese gymnastics is, local teams and coaches at various levels have been following the trend of recruiting underage players and they understand clear that once the paperwork is done, it’s almost impossible to tell how old exactly a young lady is. So whatever agenda is on Huang’s mind to get things right, it’s no easy task.

Source: Wuhan Morning Post (武汉晨报 in Chinese)

The first international youth soccer tournament in Beijing reveals details today.

The tournament, named The Great Wall Cup of Beijing, will be hosted by the Beijing Municipal Sports Administration, and undertaken by the Beijing Football Association, the Olympic Sports Center and China Sports Tour. In the first year of the event, the committee will invite teams from all over the world, both boys and girls, in the age categories 14, 16, and 18, as well as eight local teams. The event is considered to be the first ever international youth soccer tournament of this scale to be held in Beijing. International clubs and teams are welcome to register now.

The current status of Chinese soccer teams is unusual, according to Sports Minister Mr. Liu Peng, who states, “The shortage of reserve talent is the key reason for its low level.” The government has already realized the problem and started to focus on youth development. Promoting the international youth soccer tournament is a way to give local youngsters opportunities to communicate and practice with international teams so they can improve their technique and social skills.

“Chinese young players have little chance to play against foreign teams,” says Mr. Yang Junsheng, the president of the Beijing Football Association, “That is the reason why we fully support this event. We hope this tournament can serve as a kind of festival for all young players who participate in it. We sincerely hope this event will also draw more public attention to youth soccer. The Great Wall Cup of Beijing is not only a platform for Chinese youngsters to learn and experience the most advanced soccer skills, but also a window to show Beijing and China to the young generation of the world. We sincerely hope that through the Great Wall Cup, not only can Chinese players learn from other teams, but also first time visitors can have the opportunity to learn the spirit of the city, to experience the culture, the people and the fun.” By using the top sports facilities in Beijing and promoting a combination of culture, sports and travel, the tournament will satisfy participants and make them feel fulfilled by taking part in the one-week event.

Beijing, as a dynastic city, has become a preferred place to host popular international sports events, especially after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. However, a youth soccer tournament has never been hosted there before. Inspired by the successes and great impact of the youth soccer tournaments in Europe, such as the Gothia Cup and Norway Cup, the Great Wall cup is trying to attract boys and girls from all over the world who love this amazing sport, offering them the opportunity to spend a week to enjoy the tournament and experience something unique. “Beijing has become an international city; it has already hosted several big-name events drawing public awareness, yet we do not have any youth sporting events. The Beijing Football Association sincerely hopes to take this opportunity to make the Great Wall Cull of Beijing a symbol of the Post-Olympics Beijing,” Mr. Yang explained.

One highlight of the one-week program of the Great Wall Cup of Beijing is called ChinaTouch. ChinaTouch is a workshop that provides foreign players the opportunity to learn and experience Chinese culture and art. The workshop will be held in the hotel lobby all week so every participant can take part. “Teams can learn basic Chinese, calligraphy, and practice kung fu with our kung fu master,” says Shine Liu, the managing director of China Sports Tour. “We arranged this workshop to allow international teams to experience something new and unique. It is easier to learn and make new friends in a happy atmosphere.”

Mr. Shine Liu also explained more details of the event: “Not only do we want to add fun and cultural elements to this tournament, but we are also trying to create more opportunities for talented players professionally, and that is why we have the ‘Meet the Future Star’ event. Professional coaches, scouts and sports agents from China and other Asian countries will be invited to observe the games, they will pick the players they like, and we will help them to arrange a face-to-face conversation so that they can better get to know each other, and to see if there is any possibility of future cooperation.” Besides these activities already mentioned, a grand opening ceremony, a closing banquet, and a Leaders’ Party will be held during the week.

Teams will also have a selection of sightseeing opportunities. They will get the chance to take a one-day trip to the famous Great Wall, visit the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, the Drum and Bell Tower, the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube, take a tour of old Beijing Hutongs and enjoy a lakeside dinner.

“Inviting international teams to join the Great Wall Cup will make this the biggest international youth soccer event in China ever,” states Mr. Shine Liu, “We feel really honored and excited to be the organization exclusively authorized to promote the tournament internationally.” Back in the late 90s, a youth tournament named “The Four Asia Tigers” was considered to be the most influential youth soccer event in China. Mr. Shine Liu commented, “Unfortunately, the Four Asia Tiger tournament only lasted around three years, and it was Asia-wide only.”

The 2010 Great Wall Cup of Beijing will be held from July 25th-31st at the Beijing Olympic Sports Center Football Park, just across the street from the Bird’s Nest. This tournament will become an annual event in the future and aim to be one of the biggest international sports events in Beijing along with the China Open and the Italian Super Cup.

The Great Wall Cup of Beijing is now looking to cooperate with all kinds of organizations and companies worldwide. Sponsorship packages are also available for companies who want to use this as a platform to introduce their brand and products to China and the world. “The tournament welcomes companies and organizations to join the Great Wall Cup of Beijing together with the teams. With the Beijing Football Association’s support, taking part in the event will definitely help companies to open a window to the Chinese market,” Mr. Shine Liu revealed, “As an international event that is supported and organized by the Beijing Municipal Sports Administration and the Beijing Football Association, media exposure will be inconceivable. Newspaper, portal website and TV media will come in great numbers to report on the tournament and the stories behind it. We believe we will give our sponsors and partners a great return. By participating in this exciting event, companies will not only increase their brand awareness in China, but also build a solid foundation with potential business partners in China. The organizing committee has been talking to Chinese portal websites, national TV stations and influential newspapers. They have all showed great interest in the Great Wall Cup and would like to broadcast, interview and report on it because this is the very first international youth soccer tournament in China, and all media know the importance and significant meaning of the event.” For more information and details about the tournament sponsorship packages, please contact Mr. Shine Liu at shine@chinasportstour.com.

Teams from America, Switzerland, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon have already shown interest in coming for the 2010 Great Wall Cup of Beijing. The team registration fee will be waived for teams registering before Feb 28th, 2010. For more information, please visit http://www.thegreatwallcup.com, or email info@thegreatwallcup.com.

Dong competing in the Sydney Games

Five golds, two silvers and four bronzes – the performance of Chinese athletes at the Vancouver Games has been nothing but outstanding during the celebration of Chinese New Year. But back home, sports officials in Beijing are fumbling, as a bronze medal the Chinese gymnastic team won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics could be stripped soon.

As gymnastics officials may have helped Chinese athletes falsify birth documentations just like the football and basketball teams have been doing in the country, it looks they forgot to remind the players that they should keep lying.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) posted their ruling last Saturday on its Web site. Excerpt below:

In the case of Dong Fangxiao, the Executive Committee constituted that there was a violation to the FIG Statutes and Regulations. Consequently, the results obtained by Dong Fangxiao at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games have been cancelled. The FIG Executive Committee decision was forwarded to the IOC Executive Board with the recommendation to withdraw the Bronze medal obtained by the Chinese Team including the results of Dong Fangxiao in Sydney. In addition, the FIG Executive Committee pronounced the cancellation of all results obtained by Dong Fangxiao at the 34th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships 1999 in Tianjin (CHN), of all results obtained at the FIG World Cup Series 1999 – 2000 and at the Artistic Gymnastics 2000 World Cup Final in Glasgow (GBR) The costs of the disciplinary procedure are awarded to the Chinese Gymnastics Association.

The Committee decided that in the case of Yang Yun the concrete and objective evidence available is insufficient to prove that the birth date indicated on the official documents was falsified. Ms. Yang Yun is awarded with a warning for the declaration she made during the interview with CCTV5. The only mention of age in this case was on a television interview. The costs of the disciplinary procedure are awarded to the Chinese Gymnastics Association.

Should the punishment be made by the International Olympic Committee, it can kind of prove that the Chinese gymnastic team lied to the world, also putting the results at the Beijing Games highly questionable. And now the Chinese Gymnastics Association claims the evidence held by the FIG is unconvincing.

“We believe that to date, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that there were problems with Dong Fangxiao’s age in 1999 and 2000, therefore we feel great regret toward the FIG’s punishment decision,” a staffer of the association said last Saturday and later put their statement on its Web site.

The whole thing left us with a comical situation that while there’s evidence suggests the players were under age when they competed in the Olympics, without reliable help from sports science, it seems these young ladies can never get caught by lying.

And the problem in China is, if the players do get caught here, like the CBA players we’ve mentioned earlier (also see here and here), they face little punishment according to China’s sports law.

Call me a pessimist, but unless the new licensing system implemented by the FIG is super cool, it looks very unlikely that the age fraud shall be gone from here soon. Let’s hope not to continue the talk after the London Games.

Update 1: In an interview with China Youth Daily, Luo Chaoyi, director of Gymnastics Administrative Center under the General Administration of Sport, the top governing body of Chinese sport, said the age of Dong Fangxiao is her personal matter and the fact that Dong’s age had been shifted 3 yrs younger after her retirement was Dong and her family’s own practice. (According to the FIG’s findings, Dong registered a birth date of January 20, 1983 at Sydney but when accredited to act as “secretary” at vault at the 2008 Beijing Games, had declared her birth date as January 23, 1986.)

Links and Sources:

• The FIG: Sanctions pronounced!
• msnbc: IOC: No proof China cheated in gymnastics
• AP: China expresses regret over gymnastics punishment
• Time: Can Science Tell a Gymnast’s Age?
• China Youth Daily via NetEase: Dong Fangxiao’s age fraud a personal practice (in Chinese)

Photo: NetEase

The China Football Association handed out another round of rulings this week, demoting Guangzhou Pharmaceutical and Chengdu Sheffield United from the China Super League after evidence showed the teams had bribed opponents during the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Additionally, Qingdao Hailifeng was disqualified after police said the team’s chairman, Du Yunqi gambled during the end of a game, attempting to manipulate the score so Du could win more money. Both Du and the Hailifeng team captain were arrested. Global Times ran an article earlier this week outlining the new rulings.

The investigations into corruption within the China Football Association have been going on for several months, and include hundreds of players, officials, owners and referees, amounting to one of the largest investigations in recent Chinese sports history. What has not been addressed throughout the fiasco is the football beat reporters’ role in the scandals brought to light.

In a January 2010 China Sports Review article, it was reported Nan Yong, vice president of the China Football Association and Yang Yimin, a senior official in both the China Football Association and the Asian Football Confederation, along with Zhang Jianqiang, China Football Asociation’s head of referees, were detained by the police for interrogation. Newspapers that reported on Nan Yong and Yang Yimin initially were able to pull up instances of corruption, gambling and match-fixing over the span of a decade. The Guangzhou, Chengdu and Qingdao teams just exposed for bribery and match-fixing relate to games played as far back as four years ago.

I was recently asked whether the illicit behavior taking place in the China Football League was a failure of Chinese newspapers to act as a watchdog for the sport. I responded by asking that given the enormity of the investigations, their scope and the more than 10-year time frame we’re looking at, the question should really be which news organizations were NOT involved in some way with the corruption? This investigation is so sweeping and comprehensive it would not be surprising to find out most journalists were privy to information that would have gotten league officials and team owners in trouble. And if that were the case, it would mean journalists had an incentive going for them to not report the problems within the league.

I am not naming names. I am not implicating anyone or organization with this article. In fact, I have no actual proof that journalists are guilty of anything. For all I know, they very well could have had no knowledge of the corruption, gambling and match fixing. But in this instance, where the top officials have been detained, where teams are being handed severe penalties, where the whole league is being looked at from top to bottom, I have to imagine reporters, photographers and editors around China knew at least some of the information way before the scandal broke. And by “way before” I mean years before.

So why was the corruption not exposed earlier? Did reporters really have no knowledge? Or were they told not to report the truth? Were they bribed as well? Were they handed shut up money just like the reporters that kept quiet after the Hebei mining disaster? Was it to their advantage not to say anything in order to keep reporting on football? And were the newsroom editors just as oblivious?

Should the China Football Association decide to impose more penalties and fines during the investigation — and we’re far from the end — it will not be complete unless the league sits down with media organizations and talks with those that covered the sport.

— Zachary Franklin

Zheng Jie, left, and Li Na, Chinese female tennis athletes on the verge of stardom. Source: People's Daily

For all of about five seconds, there was discussion about an “all Chinese” final in the Australian Open. The People’s Daily newspaper had already crowned Li Na and Zheng Jie — the Chinese female tennis players who both managed to advance into the final four to play against Serena Williams and Justine Henin, respectively — “two golden flowers.”

And then it was over.

Defending champion Williams stopped 16th seeded Li Na in a two-hour match, winning 6-7 (4), 6-7 (1). If you followed ESPN’s account of the events, Henin “thrashed a helpless” Zheng Jie, 6-1, 6-0, in a game that took less than 60 minutes to complete.

Losing in the semifinals to Williams and Henin is nothing less than stellar, as both Li Na and Zheng Jie’s march to the semifinal matches is at least commendable, possibly historic given this is the first time two Chinese players have made it this far in an Australian Open. Right now, both Li Na and Zheng Jie should be considered two tennis stars on the verge of overtaking two other records that no other Chinese tennis athlete can yet claim: breaking into the top-10 rankings or winning a Grand Slam. They’re almost there. And while almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, the two are part of a growing sports machine in China that has its athletes on their way toward star status.

It’s no secret, China enjoys its heroic athletes. Each time a Chinese athlete accomplishes another first for the country, the people are right there cheering. Nationalism aside, China is just starting to see its sports mold homegrown athletes into world superstars. In interviews with sports promoters, coaches and athletes, all have constantly repeated the mantra that once a Chinese athlete takes home the top prize in any international event, the popularity of said sport explodes.

Forgetting Yao Ming for a minute, China’s sports stars are coming through the ranks in more non-traditional sports, at least in comparison to the revenue-driven, media-savvy sense of western sports. Forget football, basketball or baseball. China is a country where diver Guo Jingjing is a goddess, snooker prodigy Ding Junhui can dominate the front of sports newspaper pages, and Liu Xiang could fill the stands at the Bird’s Nest if it was announced Beijing was about to hold an international track and field meet, all 76,000+. But you’d be hard-pressed to find the aforementioned names anywhere outside of China — discounting the 2008 Olympic Games, of course.

Bringing Yao Ming back for a moment: One has a better chance of finding a Chinese person that can recall the gold medal-winning lineup of the women’s quadruple sculls at this past Olympic Games than one does of finding someone who knows the starting lineup to Manager Yao Ming’s Shanghai Sharks basketball team. South Korean Y.E. Yang’s victory over Tiger Woods at the 2009 PGA Championship was said to be a positive for golf in China. And given China is sending world half-pipe champion Liu Jiayu to the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, there could even be a snowboarding household name in China come March 2010.

So Li Na and Zheng Jie didn’t take home the top prize … this time. Barring a career-ending injury, the two are almost certainly destined for tennis infamy. It might be too early to place them alongside names such as Guo Jingjing, Ding Junhui, or Liu Xiang, but one might as well leave the two slots open for the tennis duo from China.

— Zachary Franklin

Links and Sources:

• People’s Daily: “Serena Williams Stops Li Na’s Fairytale Run to Reach Australian Open Final”
• People’s Daily: “China Celebrates Zheng, Li for Australian Wins”
• ESPN: “Despite Roadblocks, Justine Henin Back in Australian Open Final”

When Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger visited Beijing last summer, there was one question in his mind. At a press conference, he asked the moderator, Huang Jianxiang, a well-known local football commentator, why China, with so many people, lacked a first-rate football team.

The question was laughed off by the commentator, who replied that it was because “We never had a coach like you.”

But coaching isn’t the core problem in Chinese football. The recent crackdown on match-fixing and underground gambling tells one that the beautiful game has rotten to the core in China.

In the past three months, more than 100 players, club owners and officials have been entangled in the investigation and last week both Nan Yong, vice president of the Chinese Football Association (FA) and Yang Yimin, a senior official in both the FA and the Asian Football Confederation, along with Zhang Jianqiang, FA’s head of referees, were detained by the police for interrogation.

Without waiting for formal charges, the three, who had each served in the FA for over 18 years, were soon ousted by the General Administration of Sport (GAS), the top governing body of sports in the country.

The news came as little surprise to many Chinese sports journalists. Instead of assuming their role as watchdogs by exposing wrongdoing in the sporting industry, they are now reveling in their knowledge of match-fixing scandals.

They’re making appearances in talk shows or shilling new books, enlightening the public about the severity of the scandals and how there’re still “big fishes” out there to be caught. But rarely did these stories that they supposedly knew all along make the headlines of their papers or TV programs.

At the end of 2007, CCTV-5, China’s main sports channel, did a program evaluating the work done by Xie Yalong, then FA president. After the program gave Xie low marks, the FA began snubbing interview requests from journalists representing the channel. The message from officials couldn’t have been clearer, and the media, eager to keep their access, understood it well.

Besides media indifference, the absence of law enforcement and tacit condoning of corruption by GAS are all causes of the ignominious practices in football. Evidence suggests that bribery and match-fixing prevail in the Chinese sporting world.

The current investigation in football was made possible only after top government officials decided that they wanted to “raise the level of Chinese football.” What is happening in football industry could well mirror other aspects of Chinese sport.

Last year, after Ma Yanping, an acclaimed diving coach, exposed that the finals of diving competition of last year’s 11th National Games had been rigged by Zhou Jihong, head of China’s national diving team and deputy director of the National Aquatics Sport Administration Center, officials from GAS soon came into Zhou’s defense. The police were nowhere to be seen.

Asked about the scandal by a reporter, Zhou, who helped China get 7 out of 8 gold medals with her strikingly young-looking diving team at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, retorted, “Which media organization do you work for?”

When addressing the same topic, Xiao Tian, deputy director of GAS said at a press conference that “you can’t say it had been fucking fixed, it’s fucking fake, just because you lost.”

In a post-match interview at the 11th National Games, He Wenna, China’s first trampoline Olympic champion, said that she knew who would win the finals long ago. There was no follow-up investigation and He was later criticized at a GAS meeting for her words.

The same happened at the judo, basketball and football matches of the National Games.

More recently, in the run-up to 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games and Asian Para Games, members of the Guangzhou People’s Congress Standing Committee complained about a lack of information from the organizing committee on the sources and destinations of the funds for the two Games.

It’s reported that the Games cost 200 billion yuan ($29.28 billion) but no official figures have been released so far. Some worry that the lack of information on such a scale of government spending has already led to waste and embezzlement of taxpayers’ money.

It’s interesting to see how this heavy-handed investigation in football will play out, as the results might even shock those who started it.

Sport has long been regarded as a source of national pride in China. But when pride conflicts with laws and ethics and you hesitate, even for a moment, the battle against corruption is already lost.

Related reading:

• CS Moniter: Is China finally tackling its soccer corruption scourge?
• South China Morning Post: Another day, another raft of soccer scandals (subscription req’ed)
• Gongti Legends: Is it all worth it?
• Global Times: Fair play is sadly missing from Chinese sporting world

“The aim of signing Marbury is to pay back our fans and try to win more games in the rest of the season,” Shanxi boss Wang Xingjiang told ESPN.

Reports indicate Marbury is expected to help boost the team’s chances of making the playoffs. Currently, Shanxi sits 15th out of 17th in CBA league standings.

Shanxi made headlines last year when former NBA player Bonzi Wells joined the team, and two months later took a vacation and subsequently did not return to China.

— Zachary Franklin

1DmkIV and 7D on Ice – Winter fun on Beijing’s Houhai lake from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Another wonderful video from Dan Chung, award-winning photojournalist at The Guardian’s Beijing bureau.  This reminds me a lot of my childhood. :-)  Go here to read about Beijing’s winter sports in the old days.