Much hubbub surrounded 19-year-old weightlifter Zulfiya Chinshanlo's gold-medal win in London this summer, as it wasn't exactly clear which country she was actually from, Kazakhstan or China. Both nations claimed her -- "Chinshanlo's Olympic page cites her birthplace as Almaty, Kazakhstan, and claims she speaks both Russian and Kazakh," according to The Atlantic, while Xinhua stated (paraphrased by CNN) tha ...

By Beijing Cream Let’s talk about journalism and the Olympics. No, not the complete indifference given to China’s 96 Paralympics gold medals, but a more familiar problem: plagiarism. A former senior journalist at the Global Times is probably still wondering what the hell hit her, after being caught lifting material and inventing quotes – including a fake interview with London mayor Boris Johnson – during la ...

Something called the "National Peasants' Games" -- the 7th edition, in fact -- is currently being held in Nanyang, Henan province, which People's Daily Online describes as a "quadrennial multi- "in which sport event... in which competitors from among the country's rural residents take part in sports, both conventional, including basketball, athletics, table tennis, shooting, xiangqi (Chinese chess) and Tai ...

Picture by Kevin Reitz Just like that, the Olympics are over. As we look back, here's our list of the 10 most noteworthy China-related stories from the London Games. 1. Liu Xiang fails. Crumbled in a heap. CCTV commentators weren't sure how to react, so one of them cried. Sports broadcast journalism has rarely been lower. 2. Ye Shiwen is too good to be believed. Not long after 16-year-old Ye Shiwen defeated ...

One of the NBC announcers absolutely comes to life when he sees the chubby baby stir from its sleep. "Now that's what I call a rude awakening!" he chortles. It's a great moment, one of many the London Olympics gave us. You know, if you set aside all the controversy in swimming, badminton, fencing, boxing, gymnastics, cycling, more swimming, ping-pong, soccer, soccer again, and judo, among other events (off ...

Part of Nike's "Live the Greatness” campaign ("Who says the toughest opponent isn't the best teammate"), via cfensi As track and field takes center stage in London, a reminder that some exciting team sports will be wrapping up soon, including men's soccer (Mexico vs. Brazil final tomorrow, though South Korea vs. Japan for the bronze at 2:45 am should be equally exciting) and basketball. Rest of your Olympic ...

UPDATE, 10:34 am: There's now video! Embedded after the jump. It features snippets of the original broadcast's worst-in-the-world CCTV commentators, too. China is on fire with its sports GIFs this Olympics. Other examples: The worst call you'll ever see on the basketball court Liz Cambage becomes first woman to dunk in the Olympics Sun Yang breathes fire And one more of Sun Yang, after winning the 1500-mete ...

In an article published Saturday in the Sydney Morning Herald, South African Cameron van der Burgh admitted to cheating in his world-record-setting swim in the 100-meter breaststroke. Swimmers are only allowed one dolphin kick after entering the water and one kick after the turn, but van der Burgh copped to taking multiple -- because "every swimmer does that," he said. "I’m not willing to sacrifice my perso ...

Since becoming an Olympic discipline in 1988, China has won 23 of the 27 possible gold medals in ping pong, and it'll probably be 24 of 28 after tonight when the heavily favored team of Zhang Jike, Wang Hao and Ma Long gets done with Japan South Korea in the men's team final, which begins at 10:30 pm. This would be the second straight Olympics in which China has won all four ping pong gold medals. Congratul ...

The Brand Channel has a very interesting article about how Liu Xiang's inability to clear any hurdles in London will affect his ability to sell merchandise, specifically looking at how his sponsors have rushed to re-spin the message on the heels (no pun intended... wait, pun intended) of his crash-out yesterday. Among the noteworthy elements of Abe Sauer's piece is the above ad from Mini Cooper, with the ac ...

Journalists are fed a lot of crap by the world. Specifically by public relations flacks and sources, but really, the world at large, because we're surrounded by crap, by fetid logs of horse and other rancid mammalian shit dripping with stupidity and awfulness. It takes a decent journalist to filter that shit and present it in a way that is digestible to a halfway intelligent and educated human being. It mea ...

What the hell did we watch? Why didn't someone help Liu Xiang up? Why was he left hopping around on one foot like an inspirational failure? Liu Xiang was in the sixth heat of the preliminaries in the 110-meter hurdles, and on his first leap his left foot collided with the hurdle, sending him down. He landed awkwardly, tumbled and tumbled, and the CCTV commentators emitted a scream and then went speechless f ...

[caption id="attachment_4457" align="alignnone" width="460" caption="Badminton World Federation Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lund, Danish"][/caption] Was a note proving injury all that was required to get the world's No. 1 badminton team of Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli reinstated after their high-profile disqualification for match-fixing (and the DQs of three other teams)? I've emailed Thomas Lund, t.lund@bwfb ...

China's Lin Dan beat Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei 15-21, 21-10, 21-19 earlier today, becoming the first person to repeat as Olympic men's badminton champion (he also beat Lee in the 2008 finals). That in itself could establish him as the best male badminton player of all time, but then you consider his 48 career titles, including four World Championships, and it's apparent that he's a once-in-a-generation playe ...

Internationally famous Chinese man Yao Ming has been color-commentating the men's basketball games on CCTV, but as has always been his case, he's too intelligent and opinionated to be boxed in by his sport. Very recently, as reported by Reuters, he spoke on the record with Xinhua about the badminton and Ye Shiwen controversies: "(The) same kind of things happen in basketball. It's a simple question. Is the ...

Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were disqualified for match-fixing because they wanted to avoid facing Tian Qian and Zhao Yunlei in the semifinals, and now we know why. Tian and Zhao just won the gold medal, never dropping a set in any of their three knock-out round matches. They beat Japan's Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa 21-10 25-23. One wonders how Tian and Zhao ever lost in the group stage. You'll recall that i ...

Australia beat Brazil 70-66 yesterday to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals, but all anyone is talking about is Liz Cambage's dunk, which people are agreeing is the first-ever in women's basketball in the Olympics. Because there's no chance you'll see the video on a website that doesn't have the server capacity to directly upload files, you might appreciate this GIF, courtesy of China. (H/T Alicia) ...

Via Facebook: "Gabrielle Douglas, the first African American woman to win the all-around gold medal in gymnastics, celebrating with Liang Chow, her Chinese-born coach." (H/T Disgrasian) ...

The Guardian continues to win its coverage of the Olympics. You might remember they were right on top of the Ye Shiwen story, and what can you say about their Lego reenactments of Olympic moments except bravo, good sirs. Now there's this. If you're offended by seeing boobs or the sight of men suppressing female protestors, I recommend not clicking. Otherwise, be sure to at least let yourself enjoy the look ...

Yu Yang's retirement announcement Hold the phones, everyone. This story isn't as straightforward as we thought, and it doesn't seem like Yu Yang completely agrees with the Badminton World Federation's decision to disqualify her and teammate Wang Xiaoli for match fixing. (Also, she announced her retirement on Tencent Weibo, but we'll get to that in a second.) Yesterday on Tencent Weibo (Tuesday night London ...