Digest

OLYMPICS

Li elected to ANOC Executive Council

China's Li Lingwei will serve as Executive Council member of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) for the next four years.

Li was one of the five members elected by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to serve in the Executive Council from 2022 to 2026, alongside four other members from India, Kazakhstan, Thailand and the Philippines. Their nomination was approved by the 26th ANOC General Assembly last Thursday.

Li, vice-president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, is also a member of the International Olympic Committee.

"My election as an Executive Council member upon OCA nomination shows the Chinese Olympic Committee's important role in the Olympic Movement," said Li.

During this year's ANOC Awards ceremony, the Chinese delegation's freestyle skier Gu Ailing was named the best-performing female athlete of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, and the Chinese Olympic Committee received the award for the outstanding NOC of Beijing 2022.

SHOOTING

China on target again to boost medal tally

China clinched the 50m pistol mixed team gold and bronze medals at the 2022 International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championships in Cairo on Monday evening.

In the 13-round gold-medal match, Olympic gold medalist Jiang Ranxin and her teammate Zhang Bowen beat Mongolian pair Munkhzul Tsogbadrakh and Davaakhuu Enkhtaivan 17-9.

Zhang, 26, said they were confident they would triumph and win another gold for China.

"Although we had a few poor shots, we still won and I am very happy about that," he said.

"As long as we have strong cooperation as a team, we can win in the end."

Chinese pair Li Xue and Liu Jinyao claimed the bronze medal after another 17-9 win over Georgian mother-son duo Nino Salukvadze and Tsotne Machavariani.

China is the runaway leader of the medal table at the championships, with 27 gold, 16 silver and 15 bronze before Wednesday's events. China has, therefore, earned all eight possible Olympic quota spots.

The ISSF competition offers 32 spots, evenly split into eight Olympic individual events, as part of the qualification process for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

TABLE TENNIS

Wang Chuqin climbs into world's top 10

China's Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha retained their No 1 spots in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) world rankings this week.

Their compatriot Wang Chuqin climbed four places to a career-high seventh in the men's singles after winning the World Table Tennis (WTT) Champions Macao event last Sunday.

China's Ma Long stayed at No 2, with 20-year-old Truls Moregard of Sweden rising to a career-best No 3 after making the semifinals in Macao.

The women's singles top four rankings are unchanged, occupied in descending order by China's Sun, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu and Wang Yidi.

Japan's Mima Ito and Hina Hayata are fifth and sixth respectively.

China's Chen Xingtong, who finished runner-up at the WTT Champions on Sunday, climbed six places to seventh. Kasumi Ishikawa (Japan), Doo Hoi-kem (Hong Kong, China) and Han Ying (Germany) round off the women's top 10.

SOCCER

Vieira concerned by lack of black managers

Patrick Vieira has called for black players to be given more opportunities in coaching and at the executive level in soccer.

The Crystal Palace boss is the only black manager in the Premier League, compared to 43 percent of black players in English soccer's top flight.

Last week a report from The Black Footballers Partnership found that in England only 1.6 percent of executive, leadership and ownership positions in soccer are held by black people.

"When you are looking at the top five leagues in the world and you're looking at the number of black coaches you have in the first or second division, it is not enough," former Arsenal captain Vieira, a World Cup winner with France, told the BBC.

"There is a lack of opportunity there. There is a lack of connection from black players to connect ourselves a little bit more with people who are making the decisions.

"But overall I believe that the doors are not open for us to do what we can do and to go into management. When I talk about management I'm talking about the team, but I'm also talking about the higher level as well."

Xinhua - Agencies