Digest

E-SPORTS

Record sales fueling China's gaming boom

E-sports titles have injected fresh impetus into China's booming gaming industry, according to a new industry report.

E-sports games accounted for sales revenue of 94.7 billion yuan ($13.5 billion) in 2019, up 13.5 percent year on year, according to a 2019 report published on Thursday by the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association.

The number of gamers has increased for five consecutive years to 440 million this year, double that of the 2015 figure, added the report, which foresees improvements in talent cultivation thanks to the support of relevant policies.

Augmented-reality and virtual-reality (VR) games are major drivers of e-sports' growth. Sales of Chinese VR titles reached 2.67 billion yuan ($381 million) in 2019, up a huge 49.3 percent from last year.

BASKETBALL

Bryant and Bosh head Hall of Fame nominees

Kobe Bryant, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett were named in a a star-studded list of nominees for entry into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The quartet were named on a 50-strong list of players and coaches which will be whittled down to around a dozen names during the All-Star Weekend in Chicago from Feb 14-16.

The list also includes several players who have been nominated before but who have yet to earn enough votes for entry, including Tim Hardaway, Richard Hamilton, Chris Webber and Ben Wallace.

Coaching nominees include Rick Adelman, George Karl, Dick Motta and Rudy Tomjanovich.

The final picks for enshrinement will be revealed during college basketball's Final Four championship in Atlanta in April.

WEIGHTLIFTING

2012 Olympic champ banned for doping

Ukrainian weightlifter Oleksiy Torokhtiy has been stripped of the gold medal he won at the 2012 Olympics and banned for doping.

The International Olympic Committee said on Thursday that the Ukrainian tested positive for the banned steroid turinabol when his sample from the 2012 London Games was retested using new methods.

Torokhtiy gets a two-year ban backdated to start from December 2018, when the International Weightlifting Federation first announced he was under suspicion. Torokhtiy is the fifth weightlifting gold medalist from the London Games to test positive.

SOCCER

Top-ranked Belgium crowned team of year

Belgium was on Thursday named the FIFA World Ranking's Team of the Year for the second successive time.

The Red Devils, who finished third at last year's World Cup finals in Russia, won all 10 of their competitive matches in 2019 and hold on to top spot in the latest December standings.

World champion France remains in the second place ahead of Brazil in third. England moved up a spot in 2019 to fourth place below Brazil, while Uruguay is fifth.

Argentina (ninth) and Colombia (10th) entered the top 10 this year displacing Switzerland (12th) and Denmark (16th). China is down one spot since last month to 76th.

Artist apologizes for Serie A monkey images

The artist who created images of monkeys for Serie A's anti-racism campaign said his work was misunderstood, but apologized to those offended.

Italian artist Simone Fugazzotto told La Repubblica that his idea to portray whites, Asians and blacks as monkeys was intended to be a "defense tool" against the insulting term often hurled at black players by some Italian fans.

The campaign launched on Monday by the Italian league immediately drew criticism for its triptych of monkey faces in close-up, each with a different color.