Eric Vandenbrink catches a strike at Baribo field in Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia, playing an impromptu "friendly" against the national team on 12 September 2009. © 2009 Rick Valenzuela
I've never really shot sports -- some skateboarding, which is more like an action portrait, where you know what's going to happen and sometimes light the scene, and surfing. But not traditional sports. In September I got to shoot some pretty decent games, at two really different events.
One was a trip a bunch of journos made to watch the Cambodian Baseball Federation play at their field in Kampong Chhnang province. Baribo field is bordered by rice paddies and cows and water buffalo roam the outfield. The federation exists because a Cambodian-American, Joe Cook, fell in love with the sport and wanted to bring it to his homeland. He runs the national team and the federation from Alabama, where he's a cook at a Japanese restaurant, and dude sends out some of the wildest and funniest emails and game updates.
A Cambodian national team player points out to the ball boy a foul ball that landed in the rice fields that surround Baribo field in Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia, on 12 September 2009. © 2009 Rick Valenzuela
So a bunch of us roll out from Phnom Penh, four or so hours away to catch this game, break out the ice chest and make some hot-water hot dogs and just kick it. And then the announcer calls an "international friendly" with the Westerners. No one saw that coming. Half our team played barefoot, and we got smoked 17-4.
Korea's Beon Yeonha drives past China's Zhang Fan in the finals of the FIBA's 2009 Asian Women's Basketball Championships in and the Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai, India, on 24 September 2009. China took back the gold from Korea 91-71 in a repeat matchup from the last championship two years ago. It was China's 10th gold. Beon scored the game high 29 points. © 2009 Rick Valenzuela
A couple of weeks later, I was in Chennai, India, for a World Association of Newspapers conference. Our paper got a bronze award for cross media, and the CEO took me out there. The conference was way more technical newspaper stuff, printers and such, and nothing editorial, so I ditched, and ended up finagling myself under the basket for the International Basketball Federation's Asian women's basketball championships. I didn't know anything about these teams, but damn, China played a super physical game and dominated Korea, but Korea's Beon Yeonha is scrappy as hell.
China's Chen Xiaoli covers Korea's Jung Sunmin in the finals of the FIBA Asian Women's Championship in Chennai, India, on 24 September 2009. China took back the gold from Korea 91-71 in a repeat matchup from the last championship two years ago. It was China's 10th gold. © 2009 Rick Valenzuela
Sports is fun. Makes me wish I had bigger, faster glass.
