They trained so hard.
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At the London Olympics four years later, China finished second behind the United States in the medals table with 38 gold against United States at 46.
“With a young team, you never know”. The gold medal count this century speaks for itself, beginning with 28 at Sydney in 2000, 32 at Athens in 2004, 51 at Beijing in 2008, 38 in London four years ago, but only 26 at Rio.
Australia rebuffed China’s demand for an apology after Mack Horton called swimming rival Sun Yang a “drugs cheat”, an incident which prompted a furious response from Chinese media and web-users. “No team comes here not wanting to win the gold”, she told Reuters.
“The redo is widely regarded as ridiculous and unfair”.
“This team has an average age of 24”. The entire country was moved to tears when Xu Haifeng, a pistol shooter, won the first gold Olympic medal for Communist China in Los Angeles in 1984.
It points to a rebuilding phase ahead of Tokyo, capital of China’s war-time rival and former colonial power which still evokes bitter resentment among many Chinese. Zhu says she couldn’t have done it without support from her family, who live in a disadvantaged village in central China’s Henan Province.
“Because when these athletes are facing fierce competition and challenges, they have too much to think about and too many mental burdens and they didn’t play at their highest level”. He trained Shawn Johnson-winner of the women’s balance-beam contest at the 2008 Beijing Olympics-then helped USA gymnast Gabrielle Douglas to win gold in the women’s individual all-around event in 2012 in London.
They remained dominant in table tennis and won seven gold medals in diving, but even there their rivals seemed to be closing the gap.
Serbia won the opening set with powerful serves and spikes by top scorer Brankica Mihajlovic, but China took control of the match in the key third set.
China’s silver lining came in the behaviour of their athletes, who unusually showed their human side and won new fans, at home and overseas, in the process.
But he had warm words for swimmer Fu Yuanhui, whose bubbly personality and frank comments – rare for a Chinese athlete – won hearts at home and overseas.
The Netherlands, which has never won an Olympic medal in women’s volleyball, got here after falling to China in the other semifinal match. The term “women’s volleyball spirit” is even used by Chinese authorities in their propaganda.
“Another wrong flag? Can we not just compete in a good mood?” wrote Huang Xiaoming, a Chinese actor who has 49 million followers on his Sina Weibo account, on the microblog. Among the most prominent critics was China’s Go world champion Nie Weiping.
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The Chinese Volleyball League for both men’s and women’s teams was launched in 1996, but it has been tightly controlled by the government-run State Volleyball Administration (SVA) and CCTV Sports & Entertainment Co., Ltd, a company affiliated with CCTV.
