retiring at age 16 ! .. ..figure-skating !!

A post on retirement !!, nay not for the Office-goers !  - on Sports field and would you reading something on figure-skating when IPL is providing so much of entertainment.

In the history of the Indian Premier League, Rajasthan Royals became the first-ever IPL team to have a batsman retired our which is different from retired hurt. Retired out is a  strategy  through which a batter is called out from the middle. The major difference lies in the fact that in the case of retired out, the batsman cannot come back to bat again in the match. In a tactical move, Ravichandran Ashwin, who smashed two sixes off Gowtham, was retired out to allow Ryan Parag to come into the crease in the slog overs. He hit two sixes off Avesh as well,  as the last two overs yielded 16 runs each.

Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London.  The non-Olympic disciplines include synchronized skating, Theater on Ice, and four skating. From intermediate through senior-level competition, skaters generally perform two programs (the short program and the free skate), which, depending on the discipline, may include spins, jumps, moves in the field, lifts, throw jumps, death spirals, and other elements or moves.

US prosecutors accused Chinese government agents of trying to spy on and intimidate dissidents living in the United States, including a congressional candidate, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in New York. The US justice department convened a Washington news conference to detail the accusations in a series of criminal cases. In one of the cases, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said a Chinese government agent named Qiming Lin asked a US-based private investigator to help manufacture a political scandal that would undermine the congressional candidate.

CSK is losing – they lost to SRH too as they chased their score with ease and won by 8 wickets.  Sunrisers Hyderabad finally got on the board by chasing down 155 without any big contribution from their international stars, in the process consigning Chennai Super Kings to their fourth defeat in four games. It left the defending champions needing roughly eight wins from 10 matches to be hopeful of qualifying for the playoffs.  .. .. and immediately armchair critics swing into action, seeking Dhoni’s retirement .. .. .. now too they blame Dhoni when the Captain is Jaddu ! the mercurial  MSD sprung a surprise in 2014, downunder when he retired mid-way during the series at Australia after   the drawn Test against Australia in Melbourne. Dhoni was batting on 24 when the Test was called off early at the MCG - four overs were left and India had four wickets in hand - and he made no mention of his retirement during the customary captain's press conference at the end of the match. The announcement was made via a BCCI press release shortly after.  No debate on whether MSD who is 40+ should keep playing .. I adore him ! ~ the post is on Alysa Liu, a 2022 Olympian and World Championship bronze medalist, announcing her retirement at age 16 !

Considered the future of US women’s skating and already a two-time national champion, Liu posted her decision Saturday on Instagram. “I honestly never thought i would’ve accomplished as much as i did LMAOO i’m so happy,” Liu said in her post. “I feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone. now that i’m finally done with my goals in skating i’m going to be moving on with my life. ... this skating thing has taught me a lot more about life than i anticipated. i’m really glad i skated.”

Using the triple axel that few US women have landed successfully, Liu won her first national title in 2019 at age 13, and repeated the next year. She was too young to compete internationally on the senior level, however, and remained a force as a junior, getting comfortable with quadruple jumps as well.  Liu, of Richmond, California, recovered in time to skate in the Beijing Games, where she landed seven triple jumps in her free skate to finish seventh overall. She then came in third behind Kaori Sakamoto of Japan and Loena Hendrickx of Belgium in a watered-down world championships with the Russian skaters not participating. It was the first medal at worlds for a US woman since Ashley Wagner in 2016. Now, Liu is ready to step away. “I started skating when i was 5 so that’s about 11 years on the ice and it’s been an insane 11 years,” she posted from Japan, where she was appearing in the Stars on Ice tour. “a lot of good and a lot of bad but that’s just how it is. i’ve made so many friends, and so so sooo many good memories that i’ll have for the rest of my life.”

Last month, news emerged that Liu and her father Arthur – a former political refugee – were among those targeted in a spying operation that the Justice Department alleges was ordered by the Chinese government.  In a third case Chinese government agents are accused of trying to intimidate Arthur Liu, a lawyer and political activist in San Francisco. Liu is the father of the professional figure skater Alysa Liu, who competed for the US team in the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. Yan is a dissident who was involved in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. After Chinese authorities cracked down on the protest, he was detained without charge for 19 months and stripped of his academic credentials. He fled China in 1992, moved to the US, became a naturalized US citizen and served in the US army. Lin is accused of a conspiracy to commit interstate harassment, among other charges. 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
11^th Apr 2022.