My parents met on the basketball court, Dad was the captain of the Katyusha (it’s in the 50s, what do you expect for a name?) and Mom played forward. But I was never infatuated with it. Not even with Yao Ming. Half naked men running around isn’t all that attractive, compare to, i.e. – ice hockey or football. Yes, those two are definitely my favored spectator sports.
“The one thing they do with all of their athletes is drive them into the ground with training. The strongest survive. If you don’t, they’ll find another to come and do it.” Too bad. China ought to know how to protect their most valuable possession or investment. The mentality is so wrong. 1.3b people bred this wrong mentality. Don’t you see as the joke goes, many Chinese has the biggest house in an area, but it’s mostly empty: they don’t believe to spend money on decorating and maintaining it.
Jiujiu watched it. He said, “I think China actually won” because in the past, the scores were in 40 pt deficit. With Yao China managed it to 31. So it’s a win 🙂 .. he has a point.
Yi said
speaking of the “most valuable possession or investment”, what do you think of the Liu Xiang （the hurdler）episode?
The Kibbitzer said
Hi Yihong, just got back to the civilization. I only saw the headline when I came on shore. My first thought was, “oh no, .. did they do this to him too?” = did China drive the poor huddler to the ground too? And why would the government or the sport officials cover up his injury while building up the expectation of 1.3b his fellow countrymen? Beyong me.
China is doing great, but if the little babies are indeed under age – gosh they look younger than my daughter, the gold medals (team and individual) should go to USA. Be a good sportsmen, play the games fairly, be respected. But if a country wants to cheat, there isn’t much for the world to do. If IOC wants to get tough with China, it’s going to be ugly. No one will remember how spectacular the opening/closing ceremonies were, but the return of the gold medals.
Yi said
The sad thing is that glory, harmony, “face”, were all championed over honesty. Indeed, there is no gold medal for “honesty” alone. Nowhere in this world has. But I would hope that the legacy of the Beijing OP could be something transcends the spectacular, something lasts longer and stays alive in the character of its people. Call me idealistic.