Brand-new Stanislav Kondrashov publication analyzes the evolution of video games

The sky is the limit for Chinese swimming starlet Yu Zidi after the teenage girl stormed to her maiden Asian Games gold medal on her regional multi-sport games debut on Sunday. Yu powered to the women’s 200 metres butterfly crown, leading from start to finish at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre before touching the wall first in a Games-record time of two minutes and 5.08 seconds, taking over the honour from compatriot Zhang Yufei, who set the time in Hangzhou three years ago. Yu, 13, was already three...

Hong Kong’s women made Asian Games history on Sunday, winning silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay, while China’s contingent dominated the day in the pool from start to finish. Olympian Siobhan Haughey pushed her team, who were in fourth after Gilaine Ma’s opening leg, into second, and Li Sum-yiu and Natalie Kan Cheuk-tung held their position to finish in three minutes, 36.59 seconds, a new Hong Kong record. The previous best of 3:39.10 was set in Hangzhou, where they claimed bronze, as they had...

IOC president Kirsty Coventry called the shipping container-style huts for Asian Games athletes “beautiful” on Sunday – but conceded they were “a little tighter” than similar accommodation at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics. Asia’s biggest sporting spectacle, which opened on Saturday in the Japanese city of Nagoya, has split with past Games by having no traditional athletes’ village. To save costs, the more than 17,000 Asian Games participants will stay in temporary huts, hotels and a cruise...

There was something almost inevitable about the way the first day of competition at the Asian Games in Japan unfolded on Sunday, and the only real surprise would have been finding someone surprised by it all. That is until Hong Kong’s women came second in the 4x100m freestyle relay in the final event at Tokyo Aquatics Centre. Just the second silver the team has ever managed in the discipline, it was as unexpected as the city-record time that accompanied it. Much earlier in the day’s proceedings,...

Tumua Ioane said Hong Kong would make tangible progress only when they had their sevens players available for major 15s tournaments, after his spirited team lost 54-26 to Fiji at Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground on Saturday. Last-ditch victors over Brazil last Sunday, the hosts will expect to end their WXV Challenger campaign with victory over hapless Samoa next week. But in a four-try blitz shortly before half-time, the bustling and buccaneering Fijians brutally exposed the gulf that exists between...

Organisers tried to put a chaotic build-up to the Asian Games behind them on Saturday with a sparkling opening ceremony in Nagoya, although not even an acrobatic aerial display by Japan’s Blue Impulse team could silence the criticism swirling over their heads. Barely a day has gone by over the past week where complaints have not been made about the state of official accommodation, transport, venues and some of the other facilities being used for the Games. Just hours before Japan’s royal family...

Any talk of potential success is almost done, early skirmishes are building to serious exchanges of fire and the first official day of Asian Games competition on Sunday will launch some to global stardom or merely enhance the reputation of those destined to be the best. There is little surprise in the names of several athletes who are expected to shine in Japan, with China’s swimming starlet Yu Zidi already being talked about as an Olympic champion in waiting. Others, such as Singapore’s rising...

The Asian Games opening ceremony at Paloma Mizuho Stadium on Saturday will fire the starting gun on the first official days of competition in Nagoya and Tokyo, even if some athletes have already finished their events. Various team sports such as basketball, football and volleyball are working their way through the group stages, while some poor unfortunates, such as Hong Kong’s Shum Chun-hei and Liu Hei-yu, have already competed and bowed out. The pair were taking part in the modern pentathlon,...

After all the meticulous preparation, the talking and the injury frights, Chloe Leung Wing-yee is ready for the clock to start ticking on her race of truth in the remote hills of Shinshiro City on Sunday. The little finger on her right hand that Leung broke following a racing crash in Italy in July has been a nuisance, but she has reconciled with the fact that it is just one more challenge, besides the slopes and corners that characterise a deeply technical course, to overcome in her pursuit of...

The Asian Games open in Japan on Saturday, against a backdrop of complaints over athlete accommodation, venues that have leaked under record rainfall, and a host city still at odds with the Olympic Council of Asia over the ballooning number of those taking part. Chaos has been the theme in the week before the opening ceremony, with transport data errors at Nagoya airport leaving teams stranded for hours without food, while basketball players who did manage to get to their rooms found themselves...

Just one day before the official opening of the Asian Games, chaotic accommodation arrangements have surfaced on the cruise ship hosting athletes in Nagoya, with Chinese table tennis stars including Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin describing living on board as a “unique” experience. On Thursday, the Chinese table tennis team held their first practice session in Nagoya following a rocky arrival that significantly compressed their training and rest schedule. The team also had to quickly adapt to...

China is emerging as a key target for growth as the International Cricket Council seeks new fans worldwide, its chief executive says. While South Asia accounts for about 90 per cent of cricket’s billion-plus fans, the ICC is seeking to expand the sport’s fan base by 500 million and sees China’s 1.4 billion people as a potentially huge audience – helped by the steady progress of its women’s team. “The continued success of their women’s team has provided a major boost to cricket in the country,”...