IN BRIEF (Page 22)
Shooting
China wins women's skeet with new world record
NICOSIA: Three Chinese women shooters won the gold medal for the skeet women's team event with a new world record of 214 hits at the World Championships in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Wednesday.
Christine Brinker from Germany secured the individual gold medal with 98 hits from 100 targets.
China's Wei Ning finished second with 97 hits, followed by Italy's Chiara Cainero with 96.
Chinese veteran Zhang Shan, who ranked ninth, told Xinhua that five of the six finalist shooters had obtained the title of world champion before, which means all of them have a chance of winning the gold medal at next year's Olympics.
The previous record of 211 hits was set by the United States at the Zagreb World Cup in August, 2006.
This time, the Americans ranked second with 210 hits and Italy third with 204.
Basketball
Yao leads team's defeat of Melbourne Tigers
MACAO: The Chinese national basketball team beat the Australian Melbourne Tigers 84-78 on Wednesday night in a basketball challenge for the 2008 Beijing Olympics training tour.
NBA All-Star center Yao Ming top scored in the match with 25 points in his second game since returning from his honeymoon.
Yao dominated inside the paint in offense by making 11 of his 17 shots and grabbing eight rebounds.
But the 2.26m giant struggled at the penalty line on Wednesday hitting just three of six free throws.
Yi Jianlian, the No 6 rookie picked by the Milwaukee Bucks in this year's NBA draft, added 20 points to help China comfortably beat the Tigers for the second time.
Wang Zhizhi, a former NBA player, returned to the team from fever and tallied 11 points.
It is the first time this year the NBA trio has played together in the same match but they didn't get much help from the team's three-point shooters, who sunk just five of 18 attempts.
Volleyball
China thrash Iran 3-0 in Asian volleyball
Title favorites China came from behind to crush Iran 3-0 to take its fourth straight win in the 2007 Asian Men's Volleyball Championship here on Thursday.
Cui Jianjun scored 17 points to lead China to a 36-34, 25-22 and 25-20 win.
"We finally had a good game in the tournament," said Zhou Jian' an, head coach of China, "The players did well in all three sets, I am very satisfied with their performance today."
China stunned Iran in the opening set with an early lead of 10-4, but the latter rallied to tie 16-16 and maintained its competitiveness at 25-25.
The Chinese totally controlled the following sets, beating Iran 25-22 in the second and 25-20 in the third.
(China Daily 09/07/2007 page22)
