Taiwan’s in-line speed skating athletes should be able to capture at least four gold medals at next year’s Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, the head coach of the Taiwanese roller skating team said on Wednesday.
Huang Chin-lung told a news conference that the Taiwanese team is currently training at a “secret base” in Kunming in China’s Yunnan Province, because training at the 1,200m altitude is good preparation for the athletes.
Chiang Pin-cheng, chairman of the Chinese Taipei Roller Sports Federation, said he was confident about the Taiwanese team’s prospects for this year’s World Games in Kaohsiung.
He pointed out that at the 13th Asian Roller Skating Championships held in October at Haining in China’s Zhejiang Province, Taiwanese athletes captured 20 gold, 25 silver and 27 bronze medals.
Roller skating or in-line skating, also known as rollerblading, has been formally included as one of the new sports in the next Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010.
The sport looks like Olympic ice skating and is held at velodrome-like venues similar to those used for track cycling, except that the embankment is not as steep.
Skaters travel at a speeds of 50kph-60kph.
Shaquille O’Neal is staying with TNT Sports on a new contract worth more than US$15 million per year, Front Office Sports reported on Friday. The news means the cast of Inside the NBA is staying together even as TNT is set to license out the show to ESPN starting next season. TNT was the odd network out in the NBA’s recent TV rights negotiations, as NBC and Amazon joined previous rightsholder ESPN in inking deals for basketball games. That left TNT without a need for pregame and postgame NBA shows. In a trade with ESPN, TNT is licensing Inside the NBA to the
Juventus on Sunday stopped Inter from replacing SSC Napoli at the top of Serie A by beating their fierce rivals 1-0 and moving into the UEFA Champions League positions. Francisco Conceicao made sure that Napoli would stay two points ahead of reigning champions Inter by classily tucking home the winning goal 16 minutes before the end of an entertaining contest in Turin. Portugal attacker Conceicao netted his fourth goal of the season in all competitions after brilliant work from Randal Kolo Muani to give Juve a third straight league win. Juve are in fourth place on 46 points, ahead on goal-difference from SS
BELGIANS ADVANCE: Club Brugge gave Atalanta a lesson in efficiency, as Gian Piero Gasperini’s team had 29 efforts at goal, compared with seven from the visitors Seldom has a player’s sending off had such an influence on a game. AC Milan was to left rue Theo Hernandez’s second yellow card — for diving — as Feyenoord advanced to the UEFA Champions League last 16 at the former European champion’s expense with a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their playoff on Tuesday, giving the Dutch team a 2-1 win on aggregate. Bayern Munich, Club Brugge and Benfica also won their playoffs, eliminating Celtic, UEFA Europa League winner Atalanta BC and French team AS Monaco respectively. “In soccer everything changes in a second,” said Milan forward
Eugenie Bouchard already has her own signature pickleball paddle. She is No. 17 in the pickleball rankings and constantly appears on the main court at events because she is always a big draw. However, just to be absolutely clear, she is not retired from tennis. The 2014 Wimbledon finalist still practices on the tennis court, still competes at tennis events and still has a Women’s Tennis Association ranking (No. 1,288). The Canadian standout just has a new sport that has caught her attention. Bouchard is one of several familiar tennis names — like Jack Sock and Donald Young — crossing over to