CHINA: BASKETBALL - Mongolia's Harlem Globetrotter Sharavjamts Tserenjankhar plots China downfall

Record ID: 577009

  • Title: CHINA: BASKETBALL - Mongolia's Harlem Globetrotter Sharavjamts Tserenjankhar plots China downfall
  • Date: 17th November 2010
  • Summary: GUANGZHOU, GUANGDONG PROVINCE, CHINA (NOVEMBER 16, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MONGOLIAN BASKETBALL PLAYER SHARAVJAMTS TSERENJANKHAR WALKING WITH TEAM MEMBER TSERENJANKHAR TALKING TO REPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) MONGOLIAN BASKETBALL PLAYER SHARAVJAMTS TSERENJANKHAR SAYING: "It is difficult because of the average height, because of the experience of the player, like Wang Zhizhi. I remember him when he was 14 years old. He came to Mongolia and was playing in the army youth team. I can clearly remember him because he didn't score anything in Mongolia." TSERENJANKHAR'S ENTRY PASS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MONGOLIAN BASKETBALL PLAYER SHARAVJAMTS TSERENJANKHAR SAYING: "My childhood was in the time of the communism, so I still remember the tough time. Sometimes we had only salt and nothing else in the shops. After the 1990, when democracy came, it was a bridge to other countries, so many Mongolian went outside, they saw the life around the world, so everything started changing." TSERENJANKHAR'S WATCH (SOUNDBITE) (English) MONGOLIAN BASKETBALL PLAYER SHARAVJAMTS TSERENJANKHAR SAYING: "The heart is heart. My heart was the love of basketball. All for my dad. I played in the winter time when it was like minus 30 degrees centigrade, when the ball would not bounce. We cleared the snow outside and played." VARIOUS OF TSERENJANKHAR WALKING AWAY WITH TEAM MEMBER
  • Embargoed: 2nd December 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA2R6ALOZCO1VYUJY463162EJSB
  • Story Text: The big skies and wide open spaces of the Mongolian grasslands seem an odd place for a Harlem Globetrotter to spring from, but 2.15m tall Sharavjamts Tserenjankhar has become used to standing out in the crowd.
    Adjusting to Guangzhou's muggy climate while preparing Mongolia's basketball team to take on China at their home Asian Games on Tuesday (November 16) may take more time, however.
    A veteran of the 2002 Busan Games, Tserenjankhar, has come out of retirement to try to inspire his young team to cobble a victory or two against Group E rivals North and South Korea, Uzbekistan and Jordan.
    Goal one has already been accomplished, a four-point victory over fellow central Asian strugglers Turkmenistan in a qualifier.
    China with their tall, ex-NBA players and passionate home crowd will be more formidable opponents, but the soft-spoken Tserenjankhar is no stranger to adversity.
    Slapstick antics and trick shots may not get Mongolia over the line against China but Tserenjankhar has already had the measure of one of their better players, former NBA player Wang Zhizhi.
    "It is difficult because of the average height, because of the experience of the player, like Wang Zhizhi.
    I remember him when he was 14 years old. He came to Mongolia and was playing in the army youth team. I can clearly remember him because he didn't score anything in Mongolia," said Tserenjankhar, the team's 36-year-old centre.
    Part of what he describes as "probably the tallest family in Mongolia", Tserenjankhar was born to a mother who played national volleyball and father who also played basketball for Mongolia.
    His brother stands 2.08 metres, 22 centimetres taller than his father, while his sisters are both well over six feet.
    He grew up in a small town in the country's far east and remembers tough times during the Communist era, when food and basic provisions were scarce.
    "My childhood was in the time of the communism, so I still remember the tough time. Sometimes we had only salt and nothing else in the shops. After the 1990, when democracy came, it was a bridge to other countries, so many Mongolian went outside, they saw the life around the world, so everything started changing," he said.
    At first a high-jumper then a volleyballer, Tserenjankhar did not pick up basketball until he was well into high school but fell in love with the game after Communism collapsed and NBA games starting appearing on television.
    "The heart is heart. My heart was the love of basketball. All for my dad. I played in the winter time when it was like minus 30 degrees centigrade, when the ball would not bounce. We cleared the snow outside and played," he said.
    He was discovered by American former college basketball coach Dale Brown at a basketball clinic in Mongolia in 2001.
    Lousiana State University coach Brown, credited with bringing Shaquille O'Neal into college basketball after meeting him as a teenager at his stepfather's army-base in West Germany years before, coaxed Tserenjankhar to the United States.
    Too old for college basketball, Brown secured an invitation for Tserenjankhar to play with the Harlem Globetrotters where he played around 400 games in three years and travelled the world.
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