BEIJING — China celebrated a record gold medal haul as
the
Beijing Winter Olympics concluded Sunday, narrowly beating out chief
geopolitical rival the US to rank third in the medal count.
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Traditionally much stronger in the
Summer Games, China
earned an unprecedented nine gold medals during its home-hosted winter edition
after the state plowed resources into training.
By Sunday afternoon, at least four trending hashtags related
to China's best haul had received almost 200 million views on the Twitter-like
platform Weibo.
Much of that commentary was as pleased about beating the US
by one place as it was
China's best winter finish.
"Last year the US surpassed China by one gold medal in
the Summer Olympics, this year China surpassed the US by one medal," read
one comment liked more than 2,800 times.
The Chinese team won 15 medals in total — nine golds, four
silvers, and two bronzes.
Figure skating duo Han Cong and Sui Wenjing secured the
country's last Olympic gold — and broke a previous world record — in an emotional
pairs event on Saturday evening.
Winter powerhouse
Norway was in first place with 16 gold
medals and a total of 37. Runner-up Germany received 12 golds and 27 medals in
total.
Beijing sees the Winter Games as a propaganda showpiece with
which to burnish its international image and project soft power abroad.
But the event has been clouded by political controversies.
The US led a diplomatic boycott of the Games over China's
human rights record, which was joined by multiple Western countries.
The Games also saw a doping scandal involving a teenage
Russian athlete and growing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
However, Chinese medal-winners have been lionized as
national heroes by state media, while Chinese social media has been flooded
with patriotic comments.
"I am so proud of the Chinese team's
achievements," 32-year-old tech worker Min Rui told AFP on Sunday as she
shopped with two girlfriends near an Olympic countdown clock in one of
Beijing's central districts.
"The winter sports industry is still in its infancy and
many athletes were chosen from other sporting disciplines. So coming third in
the medal tally, ahead of countries like the
US and Canada, is a real
achievement."
Beijing's investment in developing winter sports has
nurtured a new generation of breakout stars.
Among them are teenage snowboarding champion
Su Yiming and
Chinese-American skier Eileen Gu, who is the most decorated Chinese athlete
with two golds and one silver medal.
Gu switched to compete for China over the US in 2019.
China won one gold and a total of nine medals at the
2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
It had never won more than three gold medals in Winter Games
history.
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