IN BRIEF (Page 22)
Basketball
Yao ruled out of national team's Las Vegas game
Houston Rockets star center Yao Ming will be absent from a Chinese squad which will compete at a tournament in Las Vegas next month. The event will also feature some NBA sides.
An official from the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), Hu Jiashi, said on Monday that the chance of Yao's participation in the event is close to zero.
Yao's absence is a result of his long-term injury, said a report on the website Sina.com.
Sources with the Rockets say it may take him about half a year for treatment and recovery from his shoulder injury. However, no source has yet confirmed whether the star player will require surgery.
Grassroot hoops event to be staged in Sichuan
The National Basketball Invitational for Counties will be held in Shuangliu County, Sichuan Province from June 29 to July 6.
The event is organized by the Administrative Center of Basketball, Chinese Basketball Association, and sponsored by Chengdu Sports Bureau, Shuangliu Municipal Government and China International Sports Traveling Group.
The Tournament has attracted over 200 amateur players from 12 counties of Tianjin, Hebei, Jiangsu, Fujian, Henan and Sichuan.
Baseball
Yankees first MLB club to get Chinese sponsor
NEW YORK: The New York Yankees became on Monday the first Major League Baseball club to sign a sponsorship deal with a Chinese company through an agreement with the country's largest dairy company Yili.
Yili will receive advertising exposure at Yankee Stadium and in Yankees Magazine, the official game program of the American League club, the club said in a statement.
On July 6 the Yankees will introduce pitcher Liu Kai and catcher Zhang Zhenwang, the first players from China to sign with a major league club with approval from the Chinese Baseball Association.
The Yili Group is the leading dairy industry enterprise in China and its products will be the official dairy products at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Sailing
China 49er team gets Kappa backup
China's 49er sailing team signed with Kappa before they left for Portugal for the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Cascais, Portugal.
Six students from the Ocean University of China will race for China in the 49er class in the championships in which all eleven Olympic sailing events will be contested. The event will be the major qualification regatta for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Beijing Olympics will mark the first time China take part in the category of the Olympic competition.
The team has hired an experienced athlete as their coach in order to make it one of the medal team in water sports at next year's Olympics. They duely qualified for the world championships in the qualifications also held in Portugal earlier this year.
(China Daily 06/27/2007 page22)
