Chinese Media Bemoans Medals 'Flop' as Olympic Fever Wanes

Official Chinese media on Wednesday bemoaned the country's unusually modest haul of gold medals at this summer's Olympic Games in Rio, as the country's athletes "flopped" in sports where they have previously reigned supreme.

"No gold for #CHN gymnasts, #TeamChina have suffered the worst Olympic flop at #Rio2016," state news agency Xinhua, which is directly controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, tweeted on Wednesday.

Party mouthpiece the People's Daily also weighed in after Chinese gymnasts won just two bronze medals.

"People cannot but ponder, what on earth is up with them?" it wrote.

China's haul of 17 gold medals was lagging behind that of the U.K., which had won 19 by Wednesday morning, compared with a total of 28 golds for the United States.

The Xinhua sports account on Twitter also tweeted: "You’re kidding me? The country which has never finished above China is about to."

The tweet was later deleted, only to be saved by Beijing-based Twitter user R.F. Parsley.

China once spent billions of dollars annually on its state sports development budget in a Soviet-inspired sports program that hot-housed young talent but which has been criticized for ignoring the general public.

Government talent scouts would handpick promising youngsters at an early age, taking them away from their families to a life of permanent training and discipline, former top officials have said.

Waning interest

But in Rio, Chinese athletes have been unable to defend gold medals in some of their strongest events, including badminton, gymnastics, and diving.

Chinese athletes won 16 golds in 1996 and 28 in 2000. They have come second in the medal tables since 2004, winning its highest ever number of golds, 51, in front of a home crowd in Beijing 2008.

Overall, the Chinese team had won 51 medals including 15 silvers and 19 bronzes by the end of Tuesday. But their tally of 38 gold medals from London 2012 began to look unreachable.

Swimmer Sun Yang, who was London Olympic champion, came in second in the 400 meters freestyle event and then failed to qualify for the 1,500 meter freestyle final.

Meanwhile, British divers ended an eight-year spell at the top for Chinese divers in the men's synchronized three-meter springboard, leaving China with a bronze medal.

And the country's formidable mixed doubles badminton pairs and second-ranked women's doubles pair were eliminated entirely.

Officials have hinted that the political interest and funding that peaked at Beijing in 2008 is now on the wane.

"After Beijing was selected as the host city in 2001, China started a long-term talent training plan for the Games," China's General Administrator of Sport Gao Zhidan told Xinhua in July.

"The plan continues but is not as vigorous as then," he said.

Shift in rhetoric

Online commentators said they had also spotted a marked shift in officially sanctioned rhetoric around this year's Games.

"It used to be that Olympic athletes would be vilified if they didn't win gold, but now we're not even allowed to criticize them if they don't do well. We have to say that they did their best," one social media commentator said.

"Otherwise, we're not patriotic. But surely results matter for athletes; this isn't just about entertainment."

Beijing-based lawyer Liang Xiaojun, who has been following the Games closely, said he rarely discusses the number of gold medals with his friends.

"I think everyone is much more clued up now that this is a state-run athletics mill that has very little to do with ordinary people's lives," Liang said.

"They are also aware that spending so much of taxpayers' money on trying to win gold medals may have a negative effect on their lives, and on their rights."

"My friends and I are more concerned about these things than about the number of gold medals that we win."

Public backlash

Retired Shandong University professor and veteran rights activist Sun Wenguang said there has been something of a public backlash against a system that eats up huge amounts of public resources.

"There has been a very strong backlash among the general public against the pouring of so much time, energy, and money into what was for many years a massively corrupt state-run sports administration system," Sun said.

"I think there isn't the political will from higher up to sustain it any more," he said.

"It takes a lot of investment, and money is tight at the moment, and the money just hasn't been in place for many programs."

"They are just getting some people together and training them now," he said. "It's not a nationwide program any more."

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.