After China won the runner-up in the World Cup women’s basketball, Yao Ming, the chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association who led the team, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua news agency reporters that achieving good results was the result accumulated by this team in the past 10 years, after the surprise, we still need to summarize and analyze calmly and scientifically, and come up with a framework plan to promote the sustainable development of the women’s basketball movement.
On October 1st, at the Super Dome Stadium in Sydney Olympic Park, the Chinese team lost to the US team at 61:83 in the final and won the second runner-up of the women’s basketball World Cup (including its predecessor World Championships) since 1994.
In the interview on the 2nd, Yao Ming said that the results were the result accumulated by this team in the past 10 years, which could be said to exceed expectations (reaching the top four), but the growth of a team was definitely not overnight, in fact, many people in the team began to emerge 10 years ago. For example, Li Meng, the main scorer, had already achieved good results when he participated in the World Youth Championship during the Youth League.
“The cultivation of one team and one person is a result of a 10-year cycle. It should be said that the result of this competition was very satisfactory, but we really want to thank the people who accompanied us along the way, including the leaders of the older generation of basketball association, for laying this foundation for us.” Yao Ming said.
During the World Cup, China’s outstanding performance Women’s Basketball attracted the attention of many domestic audiences, overseas Chinese and even basketball fans around the world.
Yao Ming said that one such exposure and one such excitement are of great benefit to the development of a sport, which is why Australia was so happy when it got the right to host the Women’s Basketball World Cup in 2022, because they also hope to use this event to promote the development of women’s basketball in their country.
“To make effective use of the attention and help of these societies to us, we still need to step up our work next” and come up with an overall framework and plan.
The Chinese team won 6 wins and 2 losses in the high-intensity schedule of the 10-day 8th round of the World Cup, among which they defeated France and Australia one after another in the elimination stage, but Yao Ming stressed that he should be comprehensive and objective in the summary.
“We have to summarize the right things, and at the same time we have to face some things that may not be done well enough. We have to look at both aspects.”
“We still have to see that when we face the Australian team, there is actually no advantage; The French team is actually very tight to chase us; The Japanese team won the runner-up in the last Olympic Games. This time, due to personnel adjustment or various factors, not ideal enough; There are many strong teams in Europe that have not come…… Various such factors. We can’t be hot-headed at this moment. We have to look at this problem calmly with a scientific mentality.”
Han Xu and Li Yuelu, who played in the US Women’s Professional Basketball League (WNBA) insider last season, performed well in this World Cup. Teammates generally said that their self-confidence has improved significantly.
Yao Ming said that the Chinese Basketball Association has been supporting and encouraging young players to go out in the past few years. In terms of the schedule, the time of the women’s basketball league between the United States and China is staggered. Women’s basketball of the players in some countries in the world play their own league in winter and the American League in summer. Of course, when the national team has a competition task, it also needs to make a plan selectively. “any plan needs to be chosen and cannot be comprehensive”.
Yao Ming is the idol of many young players. When asked if he would share some experience with the team members in the training life as the team leader, Yao Ming smiled and said, “This is the same time. I have been retired for 10 years”.
“I came here mainly to support women’s basketball team members and coordinate some logistics support and communication problems with China. I think an efficient team is not that everyone expresses their opinions on one thing, but that everyone knows what they should do.” He said.
(Yue Dongxing, Wang Jingyu, Su Bin/Xinhua News Agency)