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Cheer for Billie Jean King, Cheer for Women!

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Billie Jean King A few days ago, Vera showed us a movie called “Battle of Sexes”as she promised us. The title refers to a tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. It is filmed according to a true story happened in 1973. Riggs was a tennis star, but he was old and not popular any more. In order to make money and promote his popularity, he came out of retirement as a male chauvinist to challenge one of the world’s greatest female players, claiming that the female game was inferior and a top female player could not beat him even at the age of 55. King accepted his challenge after Riggs beat another top female tennis player, Margaret Court. This match turned out to be a battle of sexes. To save women’s dignity, King got trained in a harsh way and beat Riggs fluently to end this battle.. Personally, I am also inspired by this movie. I have a great conviction that women are as intelligent and powerful as men and women can accomplish anything that men can do. Let’s cheer for King, cheer for women!

The Unpleasant reality for women in sports

Monday, April 7th, 2008

The reality for women in sports is unpleasant. However, the reality for black women in sports is cruel. That’s what the author really wants to talk about. When people fight for women’s right, they only care about white women. When people fight for black people’s right , black women are ignored again. They don’t deserve what they suffered. Although some organizations have made some efforts to improve the situation of women in sports, only a few black women benefit from it. The disparaging stereotype which considers black women lack passion in sports and they originate from slavery should be thrown out of the world forever. 21 century is an era of competing fairly and peacefully and we should abandon the old idea and treated everyone as equal.

Coverage of Women’s Sports at standstill

Monday, March 17th, 2008

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According to a new study, male athletes still attracts 90 percent of reporting on television news and sports highlights shows, which is as same as the results taken in 1989, even though a great change has happened on women’s sports over the past three decades. The extremely uneven proportion of TV coverage between men and women’s sports exists all over the world. Many broadcasts even don’t involve in women’s sports at all and no women anchors appeared on any of the three network—affiliated news shows. And sometimes when a broadcast referred to an outstanding female athlete, like Sharapova, the commentators are always apt to comment on her appearance instead of her amazing performances.
This is the reality of women’s sports. They get trained as hard as male athletes, but they can never get the equivalent attention as men do. What accounts for this? That could be a dozen of reasons, such as people’s stereotype of sports and women. However, can we change the situation? What can we do?
The researchers suggested that the audience should demand the coverage of women’s sports. As far as I am concerned, to some extent, only if the producers and reporters show their interests on it, it can be improved. They are the persons who lead audience’s attention on male’s athletes. What if they talk about women’s sports from dawn to dusk? So obviously, how to arouse sports media’s interest on women’s sports is also a significant problem to resolve.
To fight for its TV coverage, women’s sports still has a long way to go. Best wishes for women’s sports! Hope we can know about sports deeply through female athletes!

Who is scared?

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

A few days ago, China has planned to play this month’s World Cup qualifier with Australia at Kunming. However, this plan evoked Australia coach Pim Verbeek’s strong dissatisfaction. He said China did that deliberately since the only way for China to beat them is to make it as difficult as possible. And he proclaimed that they will respond to the challenge by a victory.
To tell the truth, I cannot understand Verbeek’s behavior. What was he doing?Is he scared? Is he agitated by the plan? His response is completely out of our expectation. China has arranged several matches in Kunming. Many famous team, like Real Mardrid, has played there before. But no one has ever complained about the high altitude and long distance. Indeed, after the draw against Iraq, China has to win this match. But we will do our best to win the game by the skills and our tactics, not changing those objective conditions. As for Australia, if you are good enough, show us in field!
Mr. Verbeek, we are looking forward to your team’s “extraordinary” performance in Kunming. Don’t disappoint us! Enjoy!

What does “the Achilles Heel” bring?

Monday, March 10th, 2008

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In Feb 24th, German diver, Sascha kLein beat Zhou Luxin in men’s 10m platform, becoming the first as well as the last foreign gold medalist of this World Cup. His victory crashed China’s diving party and also put the Achilles Heel of Chinese team under the sunshine once again since last year’s world championships in Melbourne.
This World Cup was held in Water Cube, National Aquatics Centre. Most of the audience was Chinese and of Course, what they anticipated was a big haul of medals dropped into the pocket of Chinese team. Zhou’s failure disappointed them. In their point of view, he should have won the game. As for Zhou, the great pressure accounted for it and he was not in a good condition, especially after the previous World Championship.
However, to some extent, the Achilles Heel delivers a glimmer of hope to other nations and motivation to China. Diving is one of best events of China. They never lack of marvelous divers. China’s nation anthem winds around the venue once and once again, which looks like a great mountain suppressing other teams.
But the Achilles Heel gives them an opportunity to crawl out of the mountain. The German caught it. When I saw them cheering with champagnes, I also felt happy for them. They deserve the hard-won medal. Meanwhile, China should happy for them too. We can imagine how awful it is when you cannot meet a rival. Now they have a lot of work to do. They need to find a way to consummate their routine to bring the glory back.
Hope China will fulfill their mission perfectly.
May the best man win!

Welcome to Good luck Beijing FINA Diving World Cup !

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

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The “Good Luck Beijing” 2008 16th FINA Diving World Cup opened on Tuesday and it will last for a week. Almost 300 athletes will compete in this event, including Guo Jingjing, the Chinese diving queen and Dmitry Sautin, the Russian diving czar.
This event is held in Water Cube, the National Aquatics Center.
The divers are quite satisfied with the venue as it is so beautiful and comfortable.
I feel quite excited to get involved in it as a volunteer. Water Cube is my favorite venue and Diving is one of my favorite sports. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dive due to my immature swimming skills, but I love to watch it. Since I didn’t need to work yesterday my director led me to watch the game in VIP stand. At that time men’s 3-meter springboard synchronize diving just started. In the end He Chong and Qin Kai won the game by a long shot. Congratulations to them! They indeed made an amazing performance. Hope they can continue this glory in Summer Olympics. Good Luck!

Miller wins downhill to match Mahre’s American record for World Cup victories with 27

Monday, January 14th, 2008

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A few days ago, Bode Miller won the Lauberhorn downhill, reaching Phil Mahre’s U.S. record of 27 World Cup victories. It means that with one more victory, he will fulfill his dream to be best American skier ever. The downhill course on the Lauberhorn varies widely and it is the longest course. But making clean turn in different situations is what Miller verses in. Besides, he is in best condition now. The good weather and course preparation also contribute to his victory. To some extent, Miller is quite special. Due to the conflicts with U.S. skiing officials, he broke away from the team and organized the “Team America.”
Bode Miller is a hero in my mind, not only because of his talent but his particular style. He gets trained in his own way with his training system. It really works very well. We can see its function from Miller’s victories. Maybe we could do a research on his system to find its shinging places. His victory on the Lauberhorn doesn’t surprise me. His gift is there. His good condition is there. The victory is on his hand. The only thing he needs to do is to grasp it. In March, he still had competitions. Hope he will achieve his goal at that time. Good Luck!

Marion Jones sentenced to 6 months in prison for lying about steroids and check-fraud scam

Monday, January 14th, 2008

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Last October, Marion Jones, the former Olympic track gold medalist admitted that she took the steroid from September 2000 to July 2001 and lied to federal investigators in November 2003. Recently she was sentenced to 6 months in prison for lying about using steroids and check-fraud scam. Now she feels extremely sorry and regrets about what she has done. She had tried to plead the judge, but in vain. The judge thinks it is necessary to punish her for the mistakes she made. In his opinion, athletes should be responsible for the society since they’ve served as a model, even a hero. People will follow their behaviors. So what Jones did may affect the society badly. It is important to remind people of not cheating.
After learning this news, I feel very disappointed about her deed. She had won five medals in 2000 Sydney Olympics and she was ever considered the fastest woman in the world. Now finally we find everything is wrong. She doesn’t deserve those acclaims. I agree with the judge. He is right. And also her example could make others think twice before they do. After the incident was exploded on the surface, Jones was knocked off her pedestal suddenly. All her reputation and money had gone. We should remember this, especially for those athletes who intend to the same stupid thing.
Hope we can have a clean Olympics in 2008!