Yao Ming announced on Tuesday he’d sit out the rest of the NBA season to nurse an ankle injury and that may mean — shock, horror — the man who is arguably China’s best known athlete and sporting poster boy might miss the biggest sports event in China’s modern history.
ESPN says the decision for Yao to sit out the NBA season (which ends in June), and possibly the Olympics (which starts in August), raises intriguing questions, perhaps the most interesting of which is: Whose call will it be — China’s? The Rockets’?
“The relationship between the NBA, the Houston Rockets, and the Chinese government figures prominently in any and all matters Yao Ming. Even picking him first in the draft was not simple. Now, with Yao Ming slated to be the superstar showpiece of perhaps the most important sporting event in China’s recent history — the 2008 Beijing Olympics — there must be a hundred new ways these international relationships can be tested.
With something this bad having happened, there will be blame to spread around, and future questions to work out.
Will Yao Ming be ready to play in the Olympics? Whose decision will that be? Are the Rockets prepared to let the Chinese team make that call? And what about next season — now that China’s national basketball treasure has injured himself repeatedly on Houston’s watch (he has also had a broken tibia) might there be concerns about his returning to the NBA at all?”
The 27-year-old star centre had this to say: “If I cannot play in the Olympics for my country this time, that would be the biggest loss of my career up to right now. My biggest loss.”
No doubt that would also be a mammoth disappointment for tens of millions in China. And not just fans. The Communist state sports system that identifies talented tots and turns them into world-class athletes — and out of which Yao emerged – might feel a tad upset.
John Ruwitch is a Reuters correspondent based in Hong Kong.
(Thanks to China Digital Times [http://chinadigitaltimes.net/] for the ESPN link.)
Pictures (from top). Yao at Tuesday’s match against the Washington Wizards. Photo by Richard Carson/Reuters. And the big centre holds a flag during the one-year countdown celebrations for the 29th Olympic Games in Tiananmen Square in Beijing August 8, 2007. Photo by David Gray/Reuters
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