Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia) and Yao Ming (China) are two Internationally known sports stars, but both are dealing with niggling injuries in the final weeks before the Beijing Olympics. Gebrselassie was named to the Ethiopian 10,000m team, an event he’s won in Atlanta and Sydney. He was injured during the Athens games. He won’t compete in the marathon due to asthma and the Beijing air quality, but his return to the 10,000m, an event he is still competitive in, will certainly make that an interesting race. Gebrsellassie was the star of the uplifting movie/documentary ‘Endurance‘ which was released after the Atlanta gold medal.
Yao Ming is better known in the US, and he will be playing in an upcoming basketball tournament in Beijing as part of an Olympics ‘warm up’. Yao has been nursing an injury this Spring and utilizing some ‘traditional Chinese medicine’ as part of his treatment, something Olympic organizers are advising against as some Chinese medicine cures contain banned substances that will appear in the drug tests. We’ll see if he gets flagged when they come a testing.
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