Who's hot, who's not in China Sports (Dec 10-16)

HOT

Nicolas Anelka

A blockbuster deal has gone down. Shanghai Shenhua have reached an agreement with Chelsea to sign French striker Nicolas Anelka to a two-year contract. The 32-year-old will join Shenhua, who finished 11th in the Chinese Super League last season, in January. He will receive a salary of 10.6 million euros (about $13.3 million), which makes him the most expensive footballer ever in China. Even on an international level, the price tag is only inferior to that of Samuel Eto'o  of Inter Milan (20.5 million euros) and Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid (12 million euros).

 

Stephon Marbury

The undefeated Beijing Ducks have extended their winning streak to 10, powered largely by Starbury's amazing skill and wit. In a head-to-head with JR Smith, marquee player of the Zhejiang Golden Dragons, last Friday night, he scored 30 points, along with 5 rebounds and 3 assists, pulling off a big win, 101-98, against the Golden Dragons.

The charisma of Starbury goes way beyond the court. He paid a visit to a girl with leukemia at a hospital in Beijing on Tuesday and encouraged her in her battle against the disease. Later that night he showed up unexpectedly at Guangcai gym to watch a volleyball match between Beijing and Sichuan teams. We hope he will write about that in his column for China Daily next week.

 

Muriqui

The 25-year-old Brazilian striker Muriqui from newly crowned Guangzhou Evergrande bagged home both the 2011 Chinese Super League (CSL) Player of the Year and the Golen Boot Prize at CSL's awarding ceremony that was nationally broadcast on Saturday night.

Muriqui, who scored 16 goals in 30 league matches, conquered the CSL with his talented dribbles, accurate passes, fast pace and sharp shots, his all-round skills proving his worth of $3.5 million when Evergrande signed him from Brazil in 2010.

 

Ding Junhui

Congrats to China's snooker ace Ding Junhui on making the 83rd official maximum break during his last 128 match against Brandon Winstone on Thursday night at the 11th event of the Players Tour Championship 2011/2012. This was Ding's third 147 break, most among the post-80s generation in the game of snooker.

 

Han Han

Wikipedia uses "professional rally driver" as the primary title for Han Han, who is a lot more well-known for his cynical comments and writings. But to be frank, he has become an excellent, if not the best, rally driver in China. The 29-year-old fetched his second title in the National Rally Championship on Sunday, after his first one in 2009.

 

Not

Shangguan Pengfei

Forty-eight days after he fell into a coma after a national kungfu tournament on Oct 31, Shangguan Pengfei died. To add more anguish to his tragic death, negative reports revealing loopholes in the game emerged one after another. The 23-year-old free combat player is said to have put himself in the ring without a pre-game health examination and first aid, fighting for a humble salary of 4,000 yuan for each fight. At the same time, players like Shangguan get the lowest insurance from the tournament.

 

Yao Ming

Pictures speak volumes. The following are video frames from Yao's speech to all of his fellow freshmen at Shanghai Jiaotong University. Obviously he is paying the price for skipping classes. I added the English subtitles for better understanding.

 

Wang Meng

Wang Meng, China's most decorated Winter Olympic champion who was expelled from the national team for a notorious brawl with the team manager, flew to the US for a 20-day vacation after her hope of returning to the team became futile earlier this month. But the firm-minded short track speed skater says she will not give up on it. And she will try her best to keep in shape until the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.