Today’s Chinese cigarettes

The final day of the group phase has started, and here are the latest stories from and around the Wukeson Arena of Beijing.

• The demonstration of force delivered by the USA against Spain on Saturday may have been boring or impressive, depending on how you look at it. But the main thing for most US observers was Ricky Rubio as they could see him play for the first time. And if check around the net, you will find a lot of articles about the young Spanish phenomenon: Ricky-gnition, I’m just a kid, Brandon Jennings or Ricky Rubio?, NBA star of the future, the Next Pete Maravich, GS Warriors should have a look at Spain’s Rubio, Hard to compare this 17-year-old, and so on and so on….
• Ramunas Siskauskas with the 1-on-1 of the tournament.
• Steffen Hamann shows that he can hit some shots; unfortunately it was not enough to advance his team to the quarterfinals.
• Chris Bosh explains why Team USA won against Spain: You don’t want to lose against your best friends.
• I guess you’ve already seen the official mascots of the Olympic games? Some people think that they are really funny. Well, I always think about these guys when I see them…
• Yao and Yi winning the decisive game for China against Germany.
• Speaking of Germany, the game today against Team USA may be the last in the national team uniform for Dirk Nowitzki. It will certainly be the last for Patrick Femerling and Pascal Roller, as both declared the end of their international career after the Olympics, while Nowitzki is not quite sure if he will continue. The frustration after the elimination against China was so great, however, that Nowitzki said he can’t imagine himself playing Eurobasket 2009 in Poland after having entering the Olympic Stadium in front of 90,000 people.
• Mali qualified for the Olympic Women’s tournament but ended the trip to Beijing without a win. If you’ve seen how the ladies from Africa had to prepare their tournament, you can understand the gap between them and the other teams (via American Arena).