Oh, China. You’re good at a lot of things, but accurately documenting the ages of your athletes is not one of them. After the gymnastics debacle back in August, it’s probably not surprising to learn that Nets hoopster Yi Jianlian isn’t really 21.

Although, this time around it looks like the age was underreported, rather than the other way around. Yi has long been dogged by rumors that he’s actually older than he says, but now there’s some pretty solid evidence that he was actually born in 1984, and not 1987 (see above photo).

Details and possible ramifications after the jump.

Read more…

I know the Pittsburgh Steelers have fans everywhere, but this is starting to get a little bit ridiculous. Steeler Nation has now apparently reached all the way into another nation - China.

And, being China, it wouldn’t be proper to root for anything unless several thousand people were doing it in unison. That’s just how they roll. So get ready to cue this up, Pittsburghers, when your boys take on the Titans on Sunday.

(Video after the jump.)

Read more…

You’ve heard the refrain from soccer fans for years: “But it’s the most popular sport in the world!” That might have been the case in the past, but that might not be the case any longer, as basketball might have overtaken soccer as the world’s most played sport.

The reason? Call it the Yao Ming Effect. As Julian Borger of THE GUARDIAN writes, basketball has skyrocketed in popularity in China while soccer’s has plummeted. 12 percent of all people in China play basketball, twice as much as who play basketball. And that gap is going to continue to grow: one in three Chinese youths play the sport with more starting every day.

Read more…

Upset because your team (ahem, the Cubs) choked again? Tired of J.D. Drew ripping your heart out yet time after time? Can’t deal with the pressures of modern sports fandom? It’s OK, just pack your bags and head for your local monastery.

A Chinese soccer fan who is upset with the decision to suspend a player on the pro team he follows has decided to deal with it by moving to the Shaolin Temple and becoming a monk. Mei Nansheng, who is known to his friends as “Iron Trumpet,” is a supporter of Wuhan Guanggu of the Chinese Super League. Or, I should say, was a supporter of Wuhan Guanggu.

Read more…

Chinese basketball player Sun Yue has often been called the “Chinese Magic Johnson” because, uh, well, I guess because he’s tall and is good at basketball. But Yue, who recently signed with the Lakers, is squashing that name and bringing his own to the table: Monkey King.

Oddly, Sun’s reason for rejecting the “Magic” moniker is not because he feels that he can’t live up to the name — it’s because he’s specifically not going to pattern his game after the Laker great. The Monkey King imitates no one.

Read more…

Athletically, it was a pretty good Olympics for China. Sure, the host country had its share of embarrassments and broken promises — smog, sham ceremonies, blocked internet access, and political repression among them — but few complained about the actual events themselves, and China’s athletes made their home citizens proud by winning the gold medal count and finishing second overall to the United States.

That’s not bad for a few decades of painstaking athletic punishment. Unfortunately, like the spouse who’s never quite satisfied, the Chinese BGOC wants even more.
Read more…

Some of the most opinionated people I’ve ever met have been old. Old and cranky, old and wise, old and just old for the sake of being old. Old people, by and large, have earned their opinions.

But not in China. In China, when your house gets demolished before the Olympics and you’re sent to a rickety apartment on the outskirts of Beijing, you do what any good Chinese citizen does. You stay quiet. Or you get manual labor re-education for a year. It’s your choice, really, even if you’re a frail 70-year-old woman: Read more…

Everyone knows it’s tough to be a worker in China. Long hours, minimal recourse, and — for most in the country — tiny pay. China’s economic boom directly benefits from all of these factors, but that doesn’t make them any more palatable to outsiders.

So I suppose it’s no surprise that China’s Opening Ceremonies performers were treated in the national fashion. Unfortunately, being prima donna performers isn’t quite like being a wage slave at a provincial Nike plant, and now the performers are speaking out.

Read more…

It’s official: Nothing about these Olympic Games are real. Nothing.

In the latest post-Opening Ceremonies revelation, the DAILY TELEGRAPH reports that the 56 children chosen to represent China’s 56 ethnic and political groups for the ceremonies were, in fact, all Han Chinese. The Han make up about 90 percent of China’s population, and run the show politically in the billion-strong nation. Like I said, man - Nothing is real.

Read more…

Hosting an Olympic Games is not cheap. There’s all the stadium construction, the security costs, trying to keep the protesters in line, and so forth. Now, if you’re China, what are you going to do to try and recoup some of the costs?

Have an absolutely massive garage sale and make everything available, including Yao Ming’s bed, according to the L.A. TIMES’s Olympics blog.

CHINA DAILY reports that Beijing Game organizers hope to raise up to $1 billion yuan ($146 million) by selling furniture, fixtures, clocks, light bulbs, “a variety of sports equipment” and even some of the land underneath Olympic Games venues. The sale will be conducted by the China Beijing Equity Exchange, which describes itself as “the sole institution for the transfer of ownership of state-owned enterprises.”

I’m only interested in any of this if the Chinese government is willing to pay for shipping. However, the most interesting part is the 7′6″ Yao’s sleeping quarters, and sadly, the Chinese aren’t giving their greatest pro sports export any sort of royal treatment in that regard.
Read more…