Houston Rockets center Yao Ming is known as one of the hardest working men in basketball.
Now his hometown of Shanghai wants to make the title official by nominating him for Model Worker honors, the Shanghai Daily reported on Monday.
Also nominated was Liu Xiang, gold medalist in the men's 110m hurdles in the Athens Olympics last summer, the paper said.
PHOTO: AFP
"Both are world class athletes," the report quoted an unidentified official with the Shanghai Trade Union as saying. "What's more, they have good characters," the official added.
The Model Worker title was one of China's most prestigious under the former planned economy, often bringing promotion, better housing and political notoriety.
Its glimmer has dimmed amid the market economy's rise in recent years, but China's communist rulers keep the honor alive as a way to inspire discipline, loyalty and hard work. Shanghai is nominating 135 individuals for the award from fields such as private business, medicine and education.
Yao became one of China's biggest sporting heroes after joining the NBA in 2002 as the No. 1 draft pick.
But he has won accolades back home for returning to play with the national team during the NBA offseason, helping China reach the quarterfinals at Athens.
Kevin Garnett had 13 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter in leading the Minnesota Timberwolves over the Los Angeles Clippers 89-85 on Sunday.
Garnett struggled for the second straight game, making just 8-of-24 field goals. Sam Cassell scored 16 points off the bench to help Minnesota win its fourth straight game. The Timberwolves moved within 2{ games of idle Denver for eighth place in the Western Conference.
Elton Brand had 25 points to lead Los Angeles, which twice rallied from double-digit deficits.
Spurs 83, Rockets 70
In San Antonio, Brent Barry hit three 3-pointers during a 21-2 run in the fourth quarter to help San Antonio rally for a win over Houston.
The Rockets, who trailed by as many as 12 in the first half, went ahead 60-55 on a 23-foot jumper by Tracy McGrady with 10:31 left in the game. The basket was the last of the game for McGrady, who finished with 26 points.
It was the Rockets' lowest-scoring game of the season.
76ers 96, Lakers 89
In Los Angeles, Allen Iverson scored 13 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter and tied his career high with 15 assists, and Philadelphia overcame his horrendous shooting performance for its third straight win.
Iverson, who entered shooting 42.1 percent and averaging 30.5 points, shot 2-for-20 in the first three quarters and 5-of-28 overall along with 10-of-14 from the foul line.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier