Two snooker news items from the last few days caught my attention to the fact that snooker is growing bigger in East Asia. Maybe not as popular as in the domains of the United Kingdom, yet much more popular than in the States or Continental Europe. And since the English people adore sports betting almost as much as they adore snooker, you can by now put your money on the next World Championship that will be taken by a Chinese player.   

On the same topic, the first snooker news item was about Chinese snooker player Ding Junhui, who was chosen to carry the Olympic torch to its last stop, Huangshan city in Anhui. Starting at the foot of East Hill in Jixi County, Ding’s journey opened the last day of the 4.4 km march. At the same opportunity, Ding, one of the most admired sports people in China, expressed his wishes that snooker will be recognized as an Olympic sport. 

The second item, mentions the growing interest the snooker game in the Kashmir Valley, especially by teenagers. Kashmiri youth new craze is warmly accepted even by their parents for two reasons. First, they’d rather them concentrating on playing snooker correctly then getting involved in the troubles that reckless teenagers usually get into, mainly since the game has a soothing effect on its players. Secondly, the scene of youngsters playing snooker in local clubs marks the return of more peaceful times.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 am and is filed under Snooker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.