After winning the Australian Open on January 25, Li Na set off a media blitz in her native China, where the thirty-one-year-old tennis star made the...
Li Na made beat Dominika Cibulkova 7-6 (3), 6-0 the Australian Open final on January 25 to become the oldest woman to clinch the title in the Open era.
The spring of 1971 heralded the greatest geopolitical realignment in a generation. After twenty-two years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a détente—achieved not by politicians but by Ping-Pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it “Ping-Pong Diplomacy.” But for the Chinese, Ping-Pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedong’s foreign policy.
China’s Hou Yifan, age 19, is currently playing against Ukraine’s Anna Ushenina, 28, for the title of world female chess champion. Each player earns one point for a victory and a half-point for a draw, and, after four games, Ms. Hou leads 3...
Li Na might prefer that we forget about China and judge her by her character and accomplishments alone. Hers, after all, is the tale of a conflicted working-class girl who rose to become one of the finest, richest and most influential...
China is producing some of the world’s best young golfers because wealthy families who have profited from the nation’s market reforms are replicating, in miniature, the formula of the socialist state sports system.
Fight promoter Bob Arum insisted that he had seen the future of boxing, and that it was in China and Singapore and would perhaps spread elsewhere in Asia, like the Philippines.
Chinese tennis player Li Na, the first Asian woman to win a Grand Slam title, was named on Thursday among Time magazine’s most influential people in the world, along with N.B.A. player LeBron James and Italian soccer star mario Malotelli.
Spare a moment to consider 14-year-old Guan Tianlang. The Chinese amateur golfing phenom will make history Thursday, becoming the youngest player ever to compete at the Masters.
Tea Leaf Nation editor David Wertime spoke on February 15 on Public Radio International’s The World about NBA star Kobe Bryant...
The NFL is hoping that American football’s flash could someday give basketball and soccer a run for their money in China.
The 120,000-square foot NBA Center in Tianjin port near Beijing will house basketball courts, a fitness center and a restaurant and be part of a mixed-use development with housing for 150,000.
You can follow the Olympics two ways. First, there’s the right way: you pay attention to the athletes and root for great performances. You see them cry and hug each other in joy or look away in disgust at a bad performance. You empathize with...
When Liu Xiang, China’s track and field superstar, crashed to the ground at the London Olympic Games on Tuesday after stumbling over the first hurdle in his 110-meter men’s hurdles heat, an announcer on the state broadcaster openly wept and...
You can follow the Olympics two ways. First, there’s the right way: you pay attention to the athletes and root for great performances. You see them cry and hug each other in joy or look away in disgust at a bad performance. You empathize with...
This week on Sinica, we go to the Olympics in recognition of what is unarguably the biggest story coming out of London: the spectacular performance of Chinese swimming sensation Ye Shiwen and the subsequent allegations of doping and anti-...
The People’s Daily, the flagship of China’s state-run media empire, tried, in all honesty, to make sense of the opening ceremony at the London Olympics—an event, the paper noted, that cost not only a fraction of the opening ceremony four years...
Chinese Olympians were subjected to a state-sponsored doping regime which was modelled on eastern Europe, says a retired Chinese Olympic doctor.
Steroids and human growth hormones were officially treated as part of ''scientific training''...
China’s best athletes have not only broken records but they’ve hauled in increasingly sizeable cash bonuses from central and local governments for their champion, medal-winning performances at Olympic events.
Between 1984, when China re-...
Imagine if David Stern, after his retirement as commissioner of the N.B.A., was led off in leg irons for taking bribes. His predecessor goes with him on a ten-year hitch behind bars. And, for good measure, throw in a couple of members of the...
When NBA journeyman Damon Jones signed a shoe deal with sporting goods maker Li Ning in 2006, he became the first in a long line of American basketball players to win a sponsorship from a Chinese company.
Today, China’s Peak Sport Products...
At seven feet six inches tall and about three hundred pounds, Yao Ming, the basketball superstar who plays for the Houston Rockets, is, for many Americans, the most famous living Chinese. In 2002 he was the number-one overall pick in the National...
