La New Corp announced the renaming of its professional baseball team in a press conference in Taipei yesterday afternoon, opting to change their identity from the La New Bears to the Lamigo Monkeys in the upcoming CPBL season.
Company president Liu Pao-yu introduced his new coach, Hong Yi-fong, and three of the players — Chen Chin-feng, Chung Cheng-yu and Tsan Chih-yao — in their new Monkeys uniforms to the local press, stressing the importance of team values despite the change in name.
“Our commitment to placing a winning team on the field will never change, even though we’ve decided to move from Kaohsiung to our new home in Taoyuan,” Liu said at the press conference.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
The brand Lamigo is well represented in the local sports and recreation industry, with a members-only health and fitness club, a health clinic, a wedding plaza and a fully operational travel agency under its wings.
One of the immediate benefits that the baseball team will enjoy under the new name will be a detailed physical assessment of their players by the health clinic to help improve the team’s overall physical condition.
The new team will also have the full support of Taoyuan County officials, which in its recently completed baseball stadium held the highest attendance figures in the 17 regular-season games played there last season.
An “outstanding” 17-year-old Chinese badminton player died of cardiac arrest after collapsing on court during a tournament in Indonesia, officials said yesterday. Zhang Zhijie was playing a match late Sunday against Japan’s Kazuma Kawano at the Badminton Asia Junior Championships in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The score was 11-11 in the first game when Zhang fell to the floor between points. The teenager received treatment at the venue and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, but passed away later that night after repeated efforts to resuscitate him failed. “Medical conclusions ... indicated that the victim experienced sudden cardiac arrest,” Broto Happy, spokesman for
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