(Reuters) – The Chinese public on Monday gushed over teen heroes Su Yiming and Eileen Gu after their much anticipated appearances on the Olympic slopes as a prominent pundit urged the country’s netizens to stop panning foreign-born figure skater Zhu Yi.
The name of 17-year-old Su, a former child actor, was the most viewed topic on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform. The term “1800” – referring to his completion of one of the toughest snowboarding tricks – was a close second.
Su took silver nL8N2UI0IU in the men’s snowboarding slopestyle event behind Max Parrot of Canada. His Chinese fans, however, questioned why he was not given a higher score for what they called a “perfect” performance.
“You are the king of snowboarding in our hearts,” state broadcaster CCTV posted alongside a video clip of Su receiving his medal.
In contrast, the public continued to mock U.S.-born Chinese figure skater Zhu Yi for crying after she flopped in the figure skating on Sunday.
The 19-year-old fell on the ice and finished last, triggering a fierce backlash nL4N2UH00Z on Chinese social media that critiqued her performance and raised questions about her selection for the Olympic team.
Some members of the Chinese public urged sympathy.
“As long as she represents China, or no matter which country she represents, even though she fell down, we have to be tolerant,” a man who gave his surname as Hu, told Reuters in Beijing while waiting at a bus station near the Olympic tower.
“There should be no politicisation and narrow-mindedness to treat this matter, sportsmanship must come first.”
Hu Xijin, a prolific commentator who recently retired as editor-in-chief of the nationalist Global Times tabloid, said on his official Weibo account that the attacks on Zhu were speculative and “too much”.
“I hope that some people will stop humiliating themselves and our country without any bottom line,” he said, defending the decision by Zhu, who was born and raised in the United States in a Chinese immigrant family, to represent China.
“This sports driven reverse immigration is a new product of the times,” Hu said.
China has staffed some Olympic sports with foreign-born players, such as its ice hockey teams for the Beijing Games.
Freestyle skier Gu, whose Chinese name is Ailing and who is one of Team China’s most popular athletes, was also born and raised in the U.S. Her decision to compete for China has been criticised by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“Chinese netizens generally like Gu Ailing but their rebuke of Zhu Yi is rude and uncalled for,” Hu said. “I want to say that we should all be more open-minded than Fox and more civilised.”
Gu also trended heavily on Weibo on Monday after participating in the Big Air qualifier.
Her reaction to losing her skis during her second jump was described as “cute”. Gu later managed to get through to the final after nailing her third jump.
“Anyway, she’s able to flip in the air whereas I find it difficult just to turn myself around at home,” said one user, Zhurenyiwen Qi.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh and Yin Xiaoyu; Editing by Ken Ferris)
