China yesterday celebrated a record gold medal haul, narrowly beating out chief geopolitical rival the US to rank third in the medal count as the Beijing Winter Olympics concluded.
Traditionally much stronger in the Summer Games, China earned an unprecedented nine gold medals during its home-hosted winter edition after the state ploughed resources into training.
By yesterday afternoon, at least four trending hashtags related to China’s best haul had received almost 200 million views on the Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo.
Photo: AFP
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 China’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, while runner-up Germany received 12 golds and 27 medals in total.
CURLING
AP, BEIJING
Twenty years after the “Stone of Destiny” brought the inaugural women’s curling gold medal back to the sport’s birthplace, Britain is the Olympic champion once again.
Eve Muirhead yesterday led the British to their first curling gold since 2002, pulling away with a four-ender in the seventh for a 10-3 victory over Japan. It was the most lopsided women’s final in Olympic history.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Muirhead said. “To think, it was 20 years ago when Rhona Martin made history in Great Britain by winning that gold medal. We’ve followed in her footsteps and done it 20 years later. It’s incredible, it really is.”
One day after the British men took silver in a tense, extra-end loss to Sweden, the women led the entire match and essentially clinched it in the seventh, when a Japanese miss set up a routine takeout that gave Muirhead’s foursome an 8-2 lead.
It was the second straight medal for the Japanese team of Fujisawa, Chinami Yoshida, Yumi Suzuki and Yurika Yoshida, who were third in Pyeongchang. The Swedish women won bronze on Saturday night, beating Switzerland.
BOBSLED
AFP, YANQING, China
Francesco Friedrich yesterday made history by repeating his bobsled Olympic double, as Germany signed off the Beijing Winter Games winning nine of the 10 sliding events.
Friedrich is the first pilot to win back-to-back Olympic golds in two-man and four-man bobsled by defending the titles he won in Pyeongchang four years ago.
Friedrich piloted his German crew of Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schueller to a winning time of 3 minutes, 54.30 seconds.
Fellow German pilot Johannes Lochner, who had won the first heat on Saturday before Friedrich was fastest in the next three, had to settle for silver 0.37 seconds back.
Canadian pilot Justin Kripps came out on top in his tussle for bronze, with Christoph Hafer, finishing just 0.06 seconds ahead of the German.
Kripps’ bronze prevented the Germans again dominating the podium after they swept the medals in the two-man bobsled on Tuesday.
German racers ended up collecting 16 of the 30 medals up for grabs at the Yanqing National Sliding Center.
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
Reuters, ZHANGJIAKOU, China
The men’s 50km mass start race at the Beijing Games was shortened to 30km, but that did little to help Finland’s Remi Lindholm, who needed a heat pack at the end of the race to thaw out a particularly sensitive body part.
Lindholm spent 1 hour, 16 minutes traversing the course in howling, freezing winds, leading to his penis becoming frozen for the second time in a cross-country skiing race following a similar incident in Ruka, Finland, last year.
“You can guess which body part was a little bit frozen when I finished [the men’s Olympic 50km race] ... it was one of the worst competitions I’ve been in. It was just about battling through,” he told Finnish media.
With organizers worried about frostbite during Saturday’s race, it was delayed by an hour and shortened by 20km. The thin suits and layers worn by racers, as well as plasters to cover their faces and ears, offered little protection.
Lindholm said that he used a heat pack to try to thaw out his appendage once the race was over.
“When the body parts started to warm up after the finish, the pain was unbearable,” he added.
FIGURE SKATING
AP, BEIJING
Arbitrators early yesterday rejected a last-ditch request by US figure skaters to have their silver medals awarded before the end of the Olympics.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said in Beijing that it dismissed the appeal by the nine skaters, who finished second in the team event marred by a doping positive from 15-year-old Russian Kamila Valieva.
It did not elaborate on its decision, and said it would release details in upcoming days.
In an earlier decision, the court allowed Valieva to compete in the women’s event after her positive test went public following Russia’s victory in the team event.
The International Olympic Committee responded by saying that no medals would be awarded in any event in which Valieva finished in the top three.
Losing the case means the US skaters would receive their medals months, maybe even years, later, after Valieva’s case winds its way through hearings and appeals.
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