Puerto Rico players hit by
fans
BEIJING, July 30 (Reuters) - A basketball game between China and
visiting Puerto Rico deteriorated into a mass brawl that state
media denounced as a "night of shame", saying it set a bad example
for the 2008 Olympic hosts.
The fighting erupted at Beijing Capital Gymnasium on Friday night
after two Chinese players charged off the bench to fight Puerto
Rican players in the dying moments of a game in which China was
leading comfortably.
The bad feeling spilled into the stands where 3,000 home fans
hurled insults and missiles, the China Daily reported on Saturday.
Officials abandoned the game as the visitors fled to the locker
room, one shielding his head with a plastic chair.
ADVERTISEMENT
Chinese players Li Nan and Mo Ke had reacted after seeing teammate
Yi Jianlian fouled hard by Puerto Rican centre Manuel Narvaez, the
newspaper said.
"Fists, plastic cups, water bottles and even a fan's shoe went
flying during the fracas with China's Yi Jianlian, Tang Zhengdong,
Mo Ke and Li Nan right in the middle of it," the official China
Daily reported on Saturday.
China's basketball association deplored the violence as setting a
poor example just three years before Beijing hosts the summer
Olympics and said it would adopt measures to prevent such violence
from recurring.
"Such behaviour is very disgusting and leaves an extremely bad
impression," the China Sports Daily quoted association spokesman Li
Jinsheng as saying.
NBA superstar Yao Ming, out with a toe injury, watched from the
sidelines as the melee erupted but took no part.
"The Chinese basketball team should learn a lesson from this
incident," Yao was quoted as saying by www.sports.sohu.com.
Victory in the Stankovic Cup game, abandoned with China ahead
91-80, was later awarded to the hosts. A basketball association
official said China should apologise to fans.
State media railed about the team's behaviour.
In a story headlined "China suffers night of shame", China Daily
said the brawl "badly hurt the growing reputation of Chinese
basketball".
"China and Puerto Rico stage 'free for all'," said the Guangzhou
Daily.
It said they had turned the Capital Gymnasium, a 2008 Olympic
venue, into "the Palace of Auburn Hills arena", where Detroit
players and fans brawled near the end of a game against the Indiana
Pacers in November 2004.
Three thousand fans hurled abuse along with drinks, plastic
bottles, yoghurt and popcorn at the Puerto Rican team as it headed
off-court.
"This is the ugliest scene I have ever experienced in my life,"
31-year-old fan Wang Kai was quoted as saying.
"The Puerto Rico players have travelled more than 30 hours to come
to China and they are our guests. As the host team, how can we
treat them with such disdain?"
It was not the first instance of violence for Chinese basketball.In
Shanghai in July 2001, China and Lebanon clashed just 10 days after
Beijing won the right to host the Olympics.
Both benches emptied after the final buzzer of a physical game,
Chinese fans threw water bottles and other objects and several
Lebanese players were bloodied before police broke it up.
In other sports, overzealous Chinese supporters have frequently
embarrassed the authorities. Soccer in particular has seen a number
of violent incidents.
Fans rioted in Beijing in 1985 after the national soccer team lost
a World Cup qualifier against tiny Hong Kong, missing out on the
1986 finals in Mexico.
In August 2004, angry fans went on a rampage in the capital after
the national team lost the Asian Cup final to Japan.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/050730/15/vaqx.html
The Electric New Paper :
China rewrites history
too
CHINA may take offence at Japan whitewashing the atrocities it
committed during World War II, but China itself may be guilty of
that.
10 May 2005
CHINA may take offence at Japan whitewashing the atrocities it
committed during World War II, but China itself may be guilty of
that.
A Los Angeles Times report alleges that China's Communist Party has
also diluted many of its own major embarrassments, such as the
Great Leap Forward and the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, in its
history textbooks.
The daily quoted an academic as saying that some decisions taken by
the party in the past have resulted in the deaths of more Chinese
than those caused by Japanese militarism. Many such decisions, the
daily says, were ignored in Chinese textbooks.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,87999,00.html
US basketball team pelted
with bottles by angry Chinese crowd
BEIJING, May 10 (AFP) -
A basketball game between Chinese and US players turned ugly when
the Chinese crowd pelted the US team with bottles following a
collision between two players, a US coach said Thursday.
"There were many, many water bottles flying around, so we got the
team off the court as soon as we could, but we were followed by
some of the Chinese players to the locker room which made us feel
very unsafe," US coach Mike Frink told AFP.
The game between the Chinese national team and a team made up of
players from the US International Basketball League was played
Monday night in the central city of Changsha in Hunan
province.
Frink declined to say if the incident was brought on by
anti-American sentiment provoked by the April 1 collision between a
US EP-3 spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet that destroyed the
Chinese plane and killed the pilot.
"We've been aware of this spy plane incident and we knew that this
was a very sensitive issue, but we are a basketball team and we
have nothing to do with politics," Frink said after arriving in
Beijing Thursday.
A spokesman for the Chinese Basketball Association refused comment
on the crowd incident as did Wang Fei, head coach of China's
national team.
News of the incident emerged as former US president Bill Clinton
hailed the NBA debut of Chinese star Wang Zhizhi during a speech in
Hong Kong in which he suggested basketball diplomacy could help
heal fractured Sino-US ties.
Frink felt the Chinese players helped incite the crowd by leaving
their bench area and encircling the US bench after a US player
fouled one of the Chinese side as he was attacking the
basket.
"All of a sudden a lot of these Chinese players are around our
bench, and we're not a full team, we've only got nine players, so
it got a little bit threatening there," said Frink, who coaches the
IBL's Cincinnati Slam.
Hunan Satellite Television broadcast the game live to parts of the
country, but pulled the plug after the crowd became unruly, leaving
millions of viewers in the dark as to the outcome of the brawl and
the game.
The incident occurred with China leading 85 to 72 with eight
minutes left. It was eventually resumed with China winning 109 to
87.
"They pulled the plug just as I was watching a Chinese player
chasing an American player around the court with a clenched fist,"
said an American businessman who watched the game from his Beijing
home.
Said the online Xinkuai news, "It only took a minute, but the
American team appeared to recognize that this wasn't the EP-3
incident and all nine players went to hide in the locker
room."
Frink had nothing but praise for his Chinese hosts and said he
hoped that basketball exchanges could further promote ties between
the two countries.
China won the first game of the three game series 88 to 85, while
losing the last game played Wednesday night in Xian 120 to
103.
The Chinese team is preparing for the upcoming Asian Basketball
Championships in Japan this summer.
China sees basketball brawl as "night of shame"
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3afab3290a87.htm