Falling off horse at Olympics, Chinese media 'angry'

Chinese media is showing great bitterness over the failure of the country's sports at the Rio Olympics. The general reaction is not disappointment, but blame and avoidance of reality.

After 16 days of competition at the Rio Olympics, the Chinese team won only 26 gold medals, 18 silver medals and 26 bronze medals. Their achievements were lower than those of the US and the UK.

"Are you kidding? China has never ranked below the UK," Xinhua news agency tweeted, along with the medal tally last week.

The bitter tweet was later deleted, and replaced with the message: "Without a gold medal in gymnastics, the Chinese team is suffering its worst Olympics ever at Rio 2016."

On Sina website, a big headline ran after a few days of gymnastics competition: "Terrible! Chinese gymnastics only won 2 bronze medals, the worst result in history".

Medal table of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Rio, China sent 410 athletes but won only 26 gold medals, the lowest number since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics when they finished with just 16. The anger of the domestic media aimed at the poor performance of Chinese sports appeared, but very scattered.

Some analysts have suggested that it is time for sports officials to go. However, no newspaper has singled out any athletes, according to the Telegraph. In Rio, China’s strong sports have all underperformed.

In the gymnastics, the young athletes did not win any gold medals, giving the team its worst result since 1994. The Chinese dominance on the badminton court was also broken, with defeats in the women's singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles.

Witnessing this decline, some Chinese media tried to defend and not admit defeat. The results of a survey conducted by CCTV showed that half of the voters believed that the national athletes were unfairly treated by referees, or that many famous athletes did not participate...

Chinese badminton is no longer dominant in the Olympics.

Some Chinese newspapers blamed external influences for affecting the athletes' performances. From the misprinted national flag to the affected mentality of the competitors, specifically the case of Australian swimmer Mack Horton calling Sun Yang a "cheater", all became perfect excuses to avoid failure.

Many Chinese fans also believe that the Rio Olympics are a Western-only event, leaving their athletes out of the picture. "The Olympics are a game designed for the West," wrote one member of the Wind Forest Volcano website. Others have mocked the UK for winning medals in equestrian events.

"Equestrianism is only suitable for the nobility and attracts only a small number of spectators. Even horses can compete in the Olympics. So can monkeys in China. And Thai people should play football with elephants," added a member of the Wind Forest Volcano page.

Envious tones also emerged from CCTV: "China cannot beat the US in terms of gold medals, which is acceptable. But now we have to compete with the UK. The British media is very happy now. They are as happy as if they had picked up a jar of honey."

According to Zing