Word: sport
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Before the Beijing Olympics, China's results in beach volleyball were hardly smashing. But at the Aug. 21 final, the country's women's side showed just how far they've come. After finishing 19th in the sport at the 2000 Games and 9th four years ago, Chinese teams took silver and bronze in Beijing. The second-placed pair of Tian Jia and Wang Jie weren't strong enough to knock off the U.S. powerhouse duo of Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, who defended their gold medal from Athens. But the Americans clearly took notice of China. "Coming into...
This year the Chinese women have staked their claim to a sport that has long been the stomping ground of the U.S., Brazil and Australia. With its cheap beer, goading deejay, bikini-clad cheerleaders and 80s pop hits cranked between points, the Chaoyang Park stadium seems more Manhattan Beach than Middle Kingdom...
...round of 16. So it was up to the women to make history. In addition to the silver for Tian and Wang, the Chinese team of Zhang Xi, 23, and Xue Chen, 19, beat Brazilians Renata Ribeiro and Talita Rocha for the bronze. Wang credited the attention paid the sport by state athletic officials for China's rapid improvement. "I believe that our leaders and coaches of the national team also have increased their support and financial input, that's why we have been able to achieve this result," she said. "I believe that today we have made a historical...
...doing. I know immense physicality and endurance is involved in each routine, and that the smiles mask burning lungs. The Russians, for instance, are known to practice eight hours a day. But effort - and a discreet set of nose-clips - doesn't make it worthy of being an Olympic sport...
...against the gunplay at home - to supplant self-styled "roughneck" singers as role models, and help reduce the country's horrific levels of violent crime. "These athletes can speak to the young people in our more troubled communities, especially since many of them come from those communities," says Jamaican sports writer Carole Beckford, author of Keeping Jamaica's Sport on Track. "We can't wait for them to come home as a result...