Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Best view of the Tiger? Join the People’s Liberation Army
The huge galleries following the final round match-up between Tiger Woods (“Laohu” to the locals) and Phil Mickelson at the WGC-HSBC Champions last Sunday made life uncomfortable for player and spectator alike on a humid day in Shanghai.
China’s wealthiest had paid up to 3,500 yuan ($513) for their tickets but the best view, on the fourth green at least, went to the soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) barracks on the other side of the canal which runs alongside the hole.
As of 2007, a private in the PLA earned just 1,800 yuan ($264) a year but these guys got a close up of one of the key moments of the day, when Woods plunged his drive into the water and started a downturn in fortunes that ended his attempt to win a first title at the Sheshan International Golf Club.
Mickelson, who missed a putt of less than two feet to bogey the hole, subsequently recovered his nerve and went on to win the tournament for a second time, despite a late charge from Ernie Els.
The snap-happy followers of the leading group were a talking point all day and Woods exploded when a media photographer took pictures during the downswing of his drive at the sixth tee, which ended up in a bunker.
“Can’t I even get a swing off?,” he shouted. “Jesus Christ!”
Robredo makes friends in Shanghai
Reuters photographer Aly Song caught Tommy Robredo making this gesture to the crowd during a third round defeat to compatriot Rafa Nadal at the Shanghai Masters on Thursday.
The Spaniard was upset at the noise the crowd, who overwhelmingly backed Nadal, were making during the match.
Robredo is not the first international sportsman to be unhappy at Chinese crowds not observing the etiquette of spectating at tennis and golf events.
It’s not the most orginial of thoughts, but why should tennis players and golfers expect silence to do their jobs when other sportsmen are not afforded such conditions?
Maybe you should trying playing a tennis match when there is a lot of noise all over the court and the fans are walking and talking while a point is being played – then you will understand why you need people to shut the hell up when a match is going on!!!!
In other sports you can actually cheer while the match is being played. Tennis like golf requires a lot of concentration and when you have fans making a lot of noise it makes it very difficult for the player to hit the ball. It is as simple as that!!!
People always like to say how Nadal does so much to engage the crowd with all the ridiculous fist pumps and jumping up and down he does on the court – but they should realize how disgusting this behavior is on a tennis court. Yes it’s okay to get the crowd into the match but you can do that by playing good tennis which the crowd will be grateful for. However when you behave like a monkey on the court you create an atmosphere where the place is so darn noisy and it becomes difficult to concentrate and play your game.
There is something call “tennis etiquette” and sadly this is something today’s tennis players and fans knows nothing about!!! It’s quite a shame really because just only a decade ago you never saw tennis players or fans behave the way they do now!!!
Taiwan revels in baseball revenge
A photo caption by Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Tuesday says it all: ”Taiwan gets revenge.”
The agency elaborates in its story about a baseball game on Monday between Taiwan’s Chinese Taipei team and China.
China, though economically and militarily dominant, has never been a baseball powerhouse while Chinese Taipei is seen as a major team in Asia. “Taiwan slaughtered China 13-1…wiping out a grievance resulting from humiliating defeats to China in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and World Baseball Classic in March,” CNA wrote.
Taiwan‘s resulting silver medal at the amateur-level Asian Baseball Championship in Japan raises hopes that it can compose a winning team for the higher-profile Asian Games next year in China.
But what matters most is now is erasing memories of the close but shocking 8-7 loss to China at the 2008 Beijing Olympics followed by a 4-1 loss to the same team in the March 2009 World Baseball Classic, the media remind Taiwan.
“China is a big country. It’s getting stronger,” said Andrew Yang, a professor who specialises in China studies at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan. “At the last Olympics, we performed badly, so people consider this a make-even in a way, meaning we still have potential to be one of the best teams in Asia.”
At least they can beat China in something. Bask in your glory Taiwain.
from Changing China:
China’s infertile ground for (some) Western sports
Soccer is in a tight spot in China -- literally. Huge crowds roar for Manchester United but the national team is a laughing stock at 108th in FIFA world rankings. Poor coaching, lack of grassroots development, even corruption and violence are variously cited as reasons for the sport's demise. But the real reason may be more basic: the fact of physical space, or the lack thereof, in China.
If geography is a determinant of economic development, then it is fair to extrapolate that urban geography underpins the development of sports. And here's the rub for soccer, not to mention American football and baseball. With few parks, small concrete schoolyards and a dearth of quiet streets, urban China offers little of the space needed for the sprawling play that defines those sports. Soccer has deep roots in China, but playing space has been squeezed as cities sprawl and swallow land in big gulps.
The NBA's huge popularity in China has left other sports leagues salivating. They, too, dream of their own Yao Ming bringing forth TV audiences in the tens of millions and merchandising opportunities galore. But basketball can thank China's spatial constraints more than its own marketing wizardry for such success. Dozens of nets crammed into schoolyards make the sport accessible to a huge number of young enthusiasts. The ease with which basketball has been woven into China's urban fabric has a precedent in the explosion of Chinese table tennis in the 1950s. Both are simple enough games that can be played in tight spaces.
Curiously, the physical limitations of the crowded country augur well for one sport that uses more space than almost any other: golf. Unlike baseball, football and soccer, golf does not need a critical mass of ardent supporters to take off. Golf, in fact, can thrive in conditions of scarcity, when a small number of high-priced courses consolidate its position as an elite pastime. The lack of space in China makes it an expensive sport, out of reach for the great unwashed and just the ticket for the country's nouveau riche.
Photo Credit: Local fans of Manchester United hold signs and posters as they look into the hotel where the players stayed in on July 25, 2009 ahead of a friendly match against Hangzhou Greentown. REUTERS/Nir Elias
Breaking news: Yao Ming to have surgery, will miss whole of 2009-10 season
Houston Rockets’ Chinese center Yao Ming is to undergo surgery on his foot injury and has been ruled out for the whole of next season.
Yao will have surgery next week to repair the broken bone in his left foot and the Rockets said on their official site that he would have to sit out the 2009-10 season.
“While no timetable has been set for his return to action, Yao is expected to be available for the team’s training camp in 2010,” said the report
Last month the Rockets physician Tom Clanton described the injury to China’s most famous sports personality as “career threatening”.
PHOTO: Injured Houston Rockets center Yao Ming looks up at the score in the 4th quarter during Game 7 of their NBA Western Conference semi-final basketball playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers in Los Angeles, May 17, 2009. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
World Games proves a tough sell for Taiwan
After the globe giggled at Athens in 2004 for letting swathes of Olympics seats go empty, organisers of the far more obscure 2009 World Games in equally obscure Taiwan are doing whatever it takes to pack the venues for such unlikely events as billiards and beach handball. Tug-of-war, anyone?
Whatever it takes, in this case, includes selling seats to China. World Games host city Mayor Chen Chu travelled there on Thursday for a four-day visit, intending to sell the 90 percent of events tickets that are unclaimed so far before the curtain goes up on July 16.
Chen is a leading figure in a Taiwan opposition party that wants formal independence for self-ruled Taiwan, which mighty Beijing claims as its own for historical reasons and has threatened to take by force.
But she’s also “realistic and pragmatic,” to quote Taiwan political scientist Andrew Yang. She knows Beijing can use its authoritarian rule to send hordes of travel-hungry Chinese tourists to the World Games, quickly quashing any Athens-style absenteeism.
“You can’t ignore such a large group of the world’s public, and her polls have shown that some people in her city support more contact with China,” said Kou Chien-wen, a politics professor in Taipei.
Chen plans to market the 300,000 World Games tickets and her normally uneventful city Kaohsiung to countries besides China, but who else will have the power or interest in packing her stadiums?
PHOTO: Kaohsiung mayor Chen Chu (L) presents an invitation of the 2009 World Games to her Beijing counterpart Guo Jinlong during their meeting in Beijing May 21, 2009. REUTERS/China Daily
Let’s get an update on that “tough sell,” shall we?
http://tinyurl.com/me7fpj
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Kaohsiung 60% booked
More than 60 percent of the hotel rooms that normally cater to foreign tourists in Kaohsiung City have been booked ahead of the World Games to be held in Kaohsiung City next month, a business source said yesterday. Lin Chun-liang (林俊良), CEO of the Kaohsiung Tourist Hotel Association, said the occupancy rates at eight local tourism hotels are averaging nearly 70 percent over the period from July 13 to July 29, which overlaps with the period when the Games will be held from July 16 to July 26. Meanwhile, the occupancy rate at other hotels in the city also hit approximately 60 percent, Lin said. To support the games, 29 hotels affiliated with the association are offering their rooms at a preferential rate of NT$2,000 per night on average, Lin said, adding that the association is keen to promote tourism in Kaohsiung as the World Games also falls during the peak season for domestic travel.
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Tim Maddog,
A Taiwan Matters blogger
English shuttlers falter in bid to overtake China
Badminton England chief executive Adrian Christy made what looked like a highly optimistic prediction last month when he said he thought Britain could eventually overtake China as the dominant power in badminton.
“There will be no compromise. China are the competition but we can be bigger,” said Christy, who is in charge of developing talent for the 2012 London Olympics and beyond.
China’s players delivered a devastating reminder of where the balance of power lies at the moment with a 5-0 demolition of England on the opening day of the Sudirman Cup in Guangzhou on Sunday.
“England played well but it is beyond their ability to stop us for even a while,” said China’s head coach Li Yongbo.
England followed that up with a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Indonesia on Tuesday, while China are an odds-on bet to win the title for a seventh time in the 11 editions of the biennial world mixed team championship.
Christy has got his work cut out.
World Games bring spotlight to southern Taiwan
2008 was undoubtedly China’s year in the limelight, thanks to the Beijing Olympics. But this year, China’s longtime political and diplomatic rival Taiwan gets the World Games
And it’s not Taiwan’s frenetic, fashionable capital Taipei which will be hosting the event. Instead, the island’s second largest city and one of the world’s busiest ports, Kaohsiung, will be home to the 16-26 July extravaganza.
The World Games, held under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee, is for some of the sports which don’t make the cut for the Olympics. That includes billiards, tug of war, sumo, squash, water skiing and even life saving.
“For the spectators, at the venues as well as in front of TV sets, the particular fascinations of The World Games are found in watching these athletes compete in sports of a kaleidoscopic variety that is without match in the entire Olympic Movement,” is how the organisation describes the event.
What I have found most fascinating is the preparations Kaohsiung has been making for the Games, particularly as I covered the Beijing Olympics and the run-up to it.
Beijing was beset by problems, all well-documented, including worries over pollution, media freedom, the poor foreign language skills of its citizens and many, many other issues, though in the end it all went off more or less smoothly.
Having been to Kaohsiung many times over the past decade and several times over the last few months, I have been fascinated to observe their build-up.
That solar-panel-covered stadium is beautiful. I’ve only been to Kaohsiung once (and only to transfer from a train to a bus), but I’d love to go back and see that stadium.
A high altitude idea from China
Bolivia’s 6-1 thrashing of Argentina in a World Cup qualifier provided a flash of inspiration for one Chinese sports columnist.
The Bolivians, ranked 56th in the world, would probably not argue that playing the match at 3,600 metres above sea level had helped them in their humiliation of the Argentines, world number six in FIFA’s rankings and one of the most attractive sides around.
Yu Peng suggested that China should immediately build a new stadium in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and play all their home international matches there.
At 50 metres higher than La Paz, that could only improve the fortunes of the 100th-ranked Chinese, who are already out of the running for a place in South Africa next year.
Ice cold in Heilongjiang
Last week I went up to Harbin to check out the Winter University Games, which the city is hoping will act as a springboard to a bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
It was pretty chilly at the wonderfully kitsch Ice and Snow Festival, highlights of which you can see above, but up in the mountains the Alpine skiiers were taping up their faces to protect themselves from a wind chill factor of minus 30 degrees Celcius.
My colleague Emma Graham-Harrison has since reminded me that, if successful, Harbin might be the first Olympic city where tourists can feed live cows and chickens to Siberian Tigers , as well as check out the Lion/Tiger cross, the Liger. No Tigons, though.
