24 | Friday, March 22, 2019 DAILY SPORTS

FIGURE SKATING BASKETBALL Sui, soar close to perfection Team China’s time

Chinese pair to shine in Vegas wins world gold in stunning style By SUN XIAOCHEN season wraps up in mid­May. [email protected] “Any time you face NBA­level teams is a great opportunity to By XINHUA Team China is embracing the learn and improve. We will try to NBA Summer League in Las Vegas figure out how we can be competi­ China’s and Han as a valuable test ahead of hosting tive in the summer league while Cong were in sensational form as the FIBA World Cup. trying to build chemistry on a ros­ they claimed the pairs gold medal at The Chinese Basketball Associa­ ter merged from two lineups,” he the ISU World tion and NBA jointly announced said. Championships in Saitama, Japan, on Thursday that the Chinese In the summer of 2017 the Chi­ on Thursday. national team will join all 30 NBA nese national program launched a Skating to Ezio Bosso’s Rain in teams and the Croatia national dual­team experiment initiated by Your Black Eyes, the Chinese duo squad in the NBA Summer League CBA chairman Yao Ming. delivered a near­perfect perform­ 2019, marking the first time the The large pool of players was ance, completing a triple toe­double tournament­style competition will split into two lineups — Red and toe­double toe combination, triple feature two international entrants. Blue — with independent coaches, twist, triple Salchow, throw triple The 15th edition of the summer aimed at doubling the opportuni­ flip and throw triple Salchow, as league tips off on July 5, with the 32 ties for homegrown talent at inter­ well as level­four lifts. teams each playing four prelimi­ national level. They earned 155.60 points for the nary games at the Thomas & Mack After alternately representing free skate to move up from second Center and Cox Pavilion at the Uni­ China at the World Cup qualifiers with a season­best total of 234.84 to versity of Nevada in Las Vegas. and the 2018 Asian Games, the nail down their second world title. The top eight teams advance to a two squads merged last Septem­ “It’s a magic day for us,” said Han. China’s Sui Wenjing and in action during Thursday’s pairs free skate at the ISU world cham­ single­elimination round, with the ber. “It’s wonderful to be back on top of pionships in Saitama, Japan. ISSEI KATO / REUTERS championship game on July 15. Li was handed the reins to lead the world. I enjoyed the free pro­ Teams failing to qualify for the the host at the World Cup, which gram so much that I wanted to per­ final eight will each play an extra will be played in eight Chinese cit­ form more. I wish the season could Final results from pairs competition consolation game. ies. continue, but it is over, so we will The high­intensity schedule fits Drawn in Group A with Cote start preparing for next season.” Free skate Overall perfectly with Team China’s prepa­ d’Ivoire, Poland and Venezuela, Overnight leaders Evgenia Tara­ 1. Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, China, 155.60 points 1. Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, China, 234.84 ration for the Aug 31­Sept 15 World Team China aims to earn direct sova and Vladimir Morozov of Rus­ 2. /Vladimir Morozov, , 147.26 2. Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov, Russia, 228.47 Cup, said head coach Li Nan. qualification for the 2020 sia, who placed fourth at the 2018 3. /Morgan Cipres, , 146.52 3. /, Russia, 217.98 “This is not something like an Olympics through the 32­team Pyeongchang Olympics, picked up 4. Natalia Zabiiako/Alexander Enbert, Russia, 144.02 4. /, China, 215.84 exhibition ... this is real combat FIBA tournament by either 147.26 points and slipped to second 5. Peng Cheng/Jin Yang, China, 140.33 5. Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres, France, 215.19 that determines those guys’ future advancing to the quarterfinals or with a total of 228.47. Another Rus­ 6. Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitrii Kozlovskii, Russia, 140.31 6. Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitrii Kozlovskii, Russia, 210.30 in the NBA. They are coming for finishing as the highest­ranked sian pair, Natalia Zabiiako and Alex­ real, which for us is a great oppor­ Asian squad. ander Enbert, took the bronze with tunity to gel, gain experience and Last year, the NBA summer 217.98. improve,” said Li, a sharpshooter league set a record for total attend­ China’s Peng Cheng and Jin Yang championships, where they took the make it and get the title. en Rose, but still dropped from third on China’s team at the 2008 Olym­ ance (139,972) and matched its sin­ were fourth, with 215.84 points. title by a mere 0.06 points. “Winning the second time was to fourth place. pics. gle­day attendance record (17,500), The victory capped a comeback “We are very happy to have shown harder. It really was a team effort. “It’s a little sad we didn’t get a This will be the second time which was established in 2017. season for Sui and Han. After win­ our best performance and to win “I am so happy that we performed medal, but we did our best,” said Team China participates in the The Portland Trail Blazers ning a silver at the Pyeongchang this championship,” said Sui. “We our best today. I remember the last Peng. summer league, following its 2007 defeated the Lakers Games, Sui injured her foot and was are better than we were at the Four time we skated two clean programs Reigning European champions debut ahead of the 2008 91­73 in the championship game. sidelined for most of the remainder Continents. at the worlds was in in Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres Games. ESPN and NBA TV combined to of last year. “We had a tough time this season. 2015.” of France rallied back from a disap­ Li, who was on that 2007 sum­ amass 30.4 million viewing hours They missed the 2018 worlds as We could not prepare so well and Meanwhile, Peng and Jin pointing short program, coming mer league roster, said it’s an ideal as fans across social media plat­ well as the Grand Prix series before did not have much time to practice. improved a lot this season in both third in the and pulling test for his players in real competi­ forms accounted for more than returning to international competi­ Our coaches and our team gave us a their jumps and exhibition. They up from seventh to fifth with 215.19 tion because they will need at least 565 million video views — an tion at this year’s Four Continents lot of support and we knew we could turned in a clean program to La Vie points. a month of recovery after the CBA increase of 35 percent over 2017.