This article was first published on July 21, 2011.<\/p>\n
Ming dynasty comes to an end<\/p>\n
by Will Clem in Shanghai<\/p>\n
Yao Ming, one of China\u2019s first truly international sports stars, yesterday (July 20, 2011) formally announced his long-awaited retirement from competitive basketball, but insisted the move was \u201ca comma, not a full stop\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I need to make a personal decision as a basketball player,\u201d the NBA star and three-time Olympian told a packed press conference in his hometown of Shanghai that was broadcast live on national television and streamed on the internet. \u201cI will stop my basketball career and retire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yao, 30, has been plagued by injuries and only played five games for the Houston Rockets in the past two seasons. He had been widely tipped to retire after suffering a stress fracture in his left foot in December. \u201cThe past six months have been a very painful wait for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While Yao repeatedly mentioned plans for the future, he kept his cards close to his chest as what his next move would be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been preparing for this day for the past 17 or 18 years,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has come fast, very fast, but I have been preparing for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was first published on July 21, 2011. Ming dynasty comes to an end by Will Clem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,37958,512,89225,5145,7220,590,16255,386688,4933,234133,85,386686,54232,386685,386687],"class_list":["post-811792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cctv","tag-china","tag-daryl-morey","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-nba","tag-netherlands","tag-qin-lei","tag-shanghai","tag-shanghai-sharks","tag-sports","tag-will-clem","tag-yao-ming","tag-ye-li","tag-zha-zha-nong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}