Beijing housewife Wang Mian has never lifted weights in her life, but felt every gram Chen Xiexia hoisted to win China’s first Olympic gold in the women’s 48kg weightlifting class yesterday.
“I’m not sporty and came here out of patriotism because I heard we might see the first gold medal for China,” said the 36-year-old, whose husband bought her a ticket for the event.
Wang was one of a crowd of 5,400 Chinese who went wild with delight when little Chen, the 25-year-old world champion, set two new Olympic records on the way to a first gold at these Games for the host nation.
PHOTO: AFP
“On every lift I trembled as if I was carrying that weight myself,” said Wang, whose sporting experience is limited to occasional badminton games and a walk in the park at weekends.
Chen bounced into the arms of her coaching staff after winning the title and wrapped herself in the Chinese national flag during the medal presentations, as the crowd joined her in blasting out the Chinese national anthem for the first time at a Beijing victory ceremony.
Afterward, she appeared calm and cool about winning a place in history as China’s first champion of these Games, 24 years after China’s first ever Olympic gold was won by a shooter in Los Angeles in 1984.
“Yes, she is not very emotional,” her coach Ma Wenhui said.
“But I was very moved indeed. It was me fighting back the tears, not her. Winning the first gold medal is a very good thing for weightlifting and a great thing for our country. I am very excited. It was awesome and it will also give China a boost for the rest of the Games,” Ma said.
China’s first gold medal at the Games was not supposed to go to Chen. More than an hour earlier, Athens Olympic gold medalist Du Li was battling to retain her title in the women’s 10 meter air rifle.
But the 26-year-old from northern China never recovered from a shaky start and finished fifth behind Czech shooter Katerina Emmons.
Feeling the disappointment of millions of Chinese, Du dissolved into tears, shielding her face from the cameras, and initially refused to speak to a large contingent of Chinese and international media.
“I really felt terrible for her,” said Wang Jing, 21, a student of mathematics at the elite Peking University, who was in the crowd at the weightlifting arena.
“Everyone in China was expecting so much from her. Too much pressure. She must be feeling so low now,” Wang said.
But Wang said that secretly she was happy the honor went to Chen.
“She is such a little person and she lifted so much weight and did it perfectly every time. I am such a big fan. She has lifted China,” she said.
Chen set the home nation on the road to an expected haul of four of the seven golds in women’s weightlifting, which they hope will help them on their way to topping the overall medal table for the first time.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier