2008 is by all means an extraordinary year for China’s sports. Not merely because this country won so many golds in the Beijing Games, there’re actually so much more interesting things beyond that if we comb back closely, either about its sports administration and regime, or simply the government itself.

Li Zhigang, a reporter from the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated, posted an article on his blog yesterday about his investigation over Yi Jianlian’s age. Yi, now playing at the New Jersey Nets, entered NBA in 2007/2008 season.

When it comes to the priceless feet of Chinese superstars like Yao Ming or Liu Xiang, only one special surgeon is trusted to operate. Let's just hope that Liu's operation can go as well as Yao's.

We stumbled upon a fascinating post today on Asia Basket. Arthur Volbert, a US-based basketball writer who’s been closely following Chinese basketball, found that ages of 22 CBA players have been changed at the start of season 2008/2009...

Following the popularity of the Beijing 2008 medal tally charts, here is one for the Paralympic games too. The data is updated regularly.

The last two intakes I’ve done the “bike talk” - where we tell the newly-arrived foreigners about riding bikes in Tianjin. Here’s what I sent to their e-mails after we had lunch. It’s mostly bike ownership and safety stuff, meant to keep them alive long enough to learn the rules of the road (Tianjin’s traffic culture is more easily “caught” than “taught”).

Fitness is largely an urban, middle-class craze. Most Chinese still rely on farming for a living, and hard, physical exercise is not their idea of recreation, nor was it for urban Chinese just escaping Mao-era poverty 20 years ago

China's national men's football players check into a hotel with girls (maybe prostitutes or female fans) during the Olympics, angering fans already upset with their poor performance and behavior. Includes pictures and Chinese netizen comments.

On Friday, the IOC finally stood up to China and asked the FIG (International Gymnastics Federation) to investigate the ages of certain members of China’s women gymnastics team. Even before the Olympics began, there was evidence that He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan, and Yang Yilin did not meet the minimum age requirement to compete in the Olympics.

The image shows players Argentina's team smiling broadly as they pull back the skin on the side of their eyes, in a crude impersonation of Chinese people.