Yi Jianlian has been at the center of a Chinese tabloid sensation since being seen in the early hours drinking at the top-end night club in Beijing last week and photographed banging embracing his pop singer girl friend Shi Yan Fei.
Scandal!
State owned and edited media expressed shock that the star athlete would break his Beijing Olympic Games training regime to attend night spots, and widely reported that sports officials were about to punish the star player.
However, those Chinese sports officials…in a desperate effort not to look like Chinese sports officials…have been quick to shoot down the discipline rumors.
Hu Jiashi, vice head of the China Basketball Centre, issued a brief statement, which seems to go against what we have all heard about China for the last hundred years or so.
“We don’t have any rules on penalising (players) and we don’t have anything like internal punishment,” Hu said.
Everyone who believes that, stand on your head.
One thing we can say is, at least Yi is out there semi-living it up. Yao Ming doesn’t seem to be afforded that opportunity.
And, what about those skirts that Jie Zheng is rocking at Wimbledon? No problem there, China? You can see her ovaries, for Buddha’s sake.
Would that have been so hard, Sharapova?
