First of all, I'm sorry for the long absence as I've been too busy at work recently.
Well, the 2007 Straits Cup tournament concluded three days ago as Shangdong finished first in the tourney, winning all four games, and Jiangsu came second with three win and one losses. But...did anyone care about the final result after the "Meng Da Incident"?
Things went bad -- in fact, very bad -- after Meng Da punched Wu Dai-hao on the Sept. 4 game. Taiwanese basketball fans were furious at Meng Da and Jiangsu, but Meng and Jiangsu did not publicly offer their apology to Wu until more than 24 hours after the punch.
Taiwan Beer subequently pulled out of the tournament. And Meng Da was asked by the Chinese Basketball Association to leave Taiwan immediately.
Oh, yeah, the game results... There were only two games played in Hualien since TB withdrew from the competition. Shangdong beat Dacin 76-70 on Sept. 5 and Jiangsu beat Dacin 85-77 the following day.
A minor incident happened on the last day again. CTBA officials tried to pursuade a number of fans in the stands to STOP waving and displaying Taiwan's national flag. It was reported by several news channels and caused another controvercy.
CTBA claimed that the "Olympics format" was applied in the tournament, which means Taiwan participated the event under the name of "Chinese Taipei" and neither national flag should be displayed nor national anthem sung in the tourney.
For those of you who don't understand the "Olympics format" and political relations between Taiwan and China, I urge you to do a little homework. Anyway, it does make any sense to me that the so-called "Olympics format" should be used in the tournament. After all, this is only an invitational tournament being held in TAIWAN!! Fans have the rights to support their national team and wave any flag, sing any song, shout at anyone.
I really don't think we will be seeing a Straits Cup tournament after this year after all these troubles.
Standings:
1. Shangdong 4-0; 2. Jiangsu 3-1; 3. TB 1-2; 4. Dacin 0-4.