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Philadelphia Chinatown to honor Liu Ailing
On Monday, May 21 at 5:00 p.m. At Joseph Poon's, 10th and Arch Streets,
Philadelphias
Chinatown residents will give a hero's welcome to Philadelphia Charge
midfielder Liu Ailing, one of China's most renowned professional
women's soccer players.
The Chinatown
community is extremely excited to have Liu Ailing playing in Philadelphia
this summer as a member of the Charge. On Thursday, May 24, Liu
Ailing and the Charge will host fellow Chinese National Team standout
Sun Wen and the Atlanta Beat at Villanova Stadium at 7:00 p.m.
Attending
the reception at Joseph Poon's will be a group of 50 Chinatown community
leaders, residents, teachers, coaches, parents and Charge front
office staff members. Also in attendance at the banquet, which will
include a traditional Chinese buffet, will be the Philadelphia Chinatown
Development Corporation and Chinatown Learning Center.
Liu Ailing,
who speaks the Mandarin dialect and little English, lives in Beijing,
China with her husband Jun. She and Sun Wen were part of the silver
medal-winning Chinese team at the 1999 Women's World Cup and the
1996 Olympics. Liu Ailing is also the only Chinese player to have
participated in all three Women's World Cups (1991, 1995 & 1999),
while Sun Wen was named the FIFA Co-Player of the Century.
Because of
the number of Chinese players in the WUSA, more than 250 hoursof
professional women's soccer programming will be televised in China
over a combination of a dozen regional sports and cable affiliates,
in addition to a 22-game nationally televised package on TNT and
CNN/Sports Illustrated.
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