My Reaction to IOC's Decision to Potentially Drop Wrestling

The IOC executive board decided to put wrestling on a voting block with six other sports to decide which one will be on the 2020 Olympic program. Sports that were also close to being expelled were canoeing, modern pentathlon, taekwondo, and field hockey.  Other sports mentioned by the media to be in trouble were badminton, fencing, and cycling.

Since wrestling is not a traditional sport in Taiwan, I don't really have any strong feelings about this decision. I do feel puzzled about why wrestling and it does have historical ties to the Olympics. This sport holds true to the statement "higher, faster, stronger."

My strongest reactions are to some of the online comments people have posted. Nothing against wrestling but some of the comments are just plain idiotic. Here are some example:

"They choose curling over wrestling."

-Um…..we're talking about the summer Olympics not the winter Olympics. Curling wasn't even talked about at the executive meeting.

"They choose synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics over wrestling."

-This statement is misleading. The board was all about kicking out a sports federation. So kicking out rhythmic gymnastics would mean kicking out the FIG, which at the same time would be kicking out every gymnastics discipline. No FIG means no Gabby Douglas. Same thing for synchronized swimming which is under FINA. If FINA was dropped, all the swimming events would have been dropped. Yes that means no Michael Phelps or Ian Crocker.

"Nobody watches badminton and table tennis except for China."

-This statement is just so wrong on so many levels. Yes it is popular in China but it's also popular in the rest of Asia-Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore…… Even countries such as Germany and Denmark have strong traditions in this sport.

Also these sports have professional tours. These tour stops have sponsors and television contracts.  In addition to World Championships, badminton has the prestigious Thomas and Uber Cup for team events. I could go on. Wrestling has no such thing.

"Badminton needs to be replace due to the 2012 scandal"

Wrestling has had its own scandals. From Muslims refusing to fight Israelis to a Swedish athlete dumping his medal onto the mat, wrestling needs to clean up too. Plus watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4SeUdCg2JU

Disgusting.

Plus the Great Britain team tried to hire a bunch of Ukrainians to wrestle for them in this past Olympics. It blew up in their face when one of them failed a drug test.

"Wrestling has had so many iconic moments like Rulon Gardner."

I say SO HAS EVERY SPORT! I know of touching stories in every sport.

And to those that say modern pentathlon and taekwondo needs to be replaced, these sports federation lobbied hard and have constantly changed the format of their competitions in an effort to become more relevant. Modern pentathlon has combined running and shooting into one event and taekwondo has added video replay. Wrestling has done no such thing. They refused to drop Greco-Roman when the IOC told them to and they have more weight classes for men than women.

Again I have no personal vendetta against wrestling but trying to justify one sport over another without doing proper information makes me frustrated.

So wrestling will be put up against sports like baseball/softball, roller sports, wake boarding, squash,  wushu, and rock climbing. I'm expecting an uproar from the wrestling community to get wrestling back in and I think they have a 70% chance of succeeding.

Sports that would benefit Taiwan would be baseball/softball and roller sports. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll succeed. The IOC just needs to raise the cap on the number of sports.

What's your thinking to the IOC's decision?

If you were planning on watching the WBC in Taiwan.....

Better buy your tickets now! Over 90% of the Chinese Taipei-Australia opening match have been sold. That figure is even higher for the South Korean game, and only 4000 tickets remain for the Netherlands tilt. The Taichung International Baseball stadium can fit around 20,000 fans.

The World Baseball Classic rounds in Taiwan run from March 2-5.

source: http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201301210022

10 things I want to see in 2013

Some are more realistic than others

1.       Tennis player Hsieh Su-Wei to maintain her ranking in the top 30

2.       Fourth of the medals table at East Asian Games

3.       Figure skater qualify past the first round at the World Championships

4.       Luger Lien Te-An successfully qualify for the 2014 Olympics

5.       Jeremy Lin leads Rockets to the playoffs

6.       Golfer Yani Tseng to hold on to her number 1 ranking

7.       Advance out of pool play at the World Baseball Classic

8.       Top 6 finish for both national basketball teams at the FIBA Asia Championships

9.       Footballer Victor Chou to recover from his foot surgery

10.   Jimmy Wang to break back into top 100 of the ATP rankings

What would you like to see of Taiwanese athletes this year?

Subway advertisement

Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AdceikFpUk

This stars Kuo Hong-Chih who played for the LA Dodgers. If you don't speak Chinese, it's OK pretty much the actions speak for themselves.

But if you need a summary here goes: It's the ninth inning. With a one run lead, Kuo has just thrown a ball and now the count is full. Announcer and the crowd is discouraged. Coach comes up to the mound. The commentator asks what's the coach going to do. Turns out the coach has a Subway sandwich which is both filling and nutritious. After eating it, Kuo has energy to throw a strike and win the game. The sandwich is advertised for 69 NT (69 is also the number on the back of Kuo's jersey in the commercial) or around $2.50.

Tidbit: You might noticed the date ９８ 年 ２ 月 １７ 日 at the first two seconds of the clip. Direct translation would give Year 98 (February 17). No this was not shot in 1998 as Kuo would have only been 17 at the time. Year 98 is literally the 98th year of a non Chinese ruling emperor, who was overthrown in 1912. Thus, the year of this commercial is 2009 on the Gregorian Calendar.

How much is a Taiwanese baseball team worth?

....Around 4.7 million US dollars or 130 million New Taiwan Dollars.

That's the amount E-United Group decided to pay for the Taichung-based Bulls baseball club after their sponsor the Sinon Corporation put the club up for sale. The Sinon Corporation had been the team's sponsor since 1996.

This is good news for the Chinese Professional Baseball League. There are only four teams left in the league ever since the Chinatrust Whales and Dmedia T-Rex clubs disbanded in 2008. Had the Bulls club completely disbanded this year, the league would have been left with a paltry three teams. Allegations of corruption and game fixing have dogged the league for the past few years. Plus the global economic downturn has not helped the league either. The league is crucial for baseball development in Taiwan, which along with basketball are the two most popular sports on the island. Without the league, players would have to go to Japan.

The other three teams in the league are the Lamigo Monkeys (in Taoyuan), Brother Elephants (in Taipei), and Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions (in Tainan).

Taiwan-2nd at Asian Baseball Championships

Defeating China 3-1 on Monday propelled Taiwan to a 2nd place finish at the continental championships. The 2-1 loss to Japan turned out to be the deciding factor as Japan would go on to stay undefeated and finish first. South Korea finished third followed by China, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

Watch inning four here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIkdZaq5rp0

Watch inning five here as Taiwan evens up the score:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1g0q4W7bTA

Update-2012 Asian Baseball Championships

Chinese Taipei has played two games. They lost a close one to Japan 1-2 and then thrashed Phillippines 12-1. They were supposed to play China yesterday but it was rained out. That game has been moved to the third. Today they play Pakistan and tomorrow Korea.

This is a round robin tournament. So far Korea and Japan have yet to lose and thus they're in the driver's seat.

World Baseball Classic Qualifier Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlTFoTOTP94

Quick recap of Taiwan's 9-0 win over the Kiwis from last week.

This week: 2012 Asian Baseball Championship

This week the Taiwan national baseball team is back in action as they compete for the Asian Championships. Taiwan will serve as the host as Taichung, loacted in the northern part of the island, is the host city of the contest which starts on the 28th. Other teams making the field are the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, China and Pakistan. Taiwan will look to improve upon their runner up finish in Sapporo three years ago.

Japan is the favorite, and I expect them to medal with ease. My other prediction is that South Korea and Taiwan will duke it out for a place in the finals. China has an outside shot for a medal. And I will be surprised if Pakistan and the Philippines (who are using an almost new roster than the one they had at the World Baseball Classic Qualifier) aren't at the bottom of the competition.

Of note earlier this month, the under-15 national team won the Asian U-15 tournament in India. Congratulations!

World Baseball Classic Qualification Final

Congratulations to the men in red and blue who qualified for the World Baseball Classic on Sunday. They defeated New Zealand 9-0. Their reward? They will be hosting the Netherlands, Australia, and South Korea in March. Hopefully their MLB players like Wei-Yin Chen will make themselves avaliable for the tournament.

World Baseball Classic Qualification

Taiwan is hosting the World Baseball Classic Qualifier number 4. They are in the finals today and will play against New Zealand, a team that they beat 10-0 in the preliminaries. Taiwan also beat the Phillippines 16-0 in the semifinals.