WITH China trailing at third place behind the USA and Great Britain at Rio 2016, the country’s state media has publicly expressed frustration at the poor showing, declaring this year’s games the “worst Olympic flop”.
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China added a men’s team gold medal here on Wednesday to sweep titles of the Olympic table tennis competitions for the third straight time.
Team USA won two medals: A silver medal in the Women’s Single Sculls and a gold in the Women’s Coxed Eight. Meanwhile, China is alone in second place in the overall standings with 46 medals, 15 of which are gold. Watch the live stream of the women’s water polo semifinal match 2 between Hungary and the United States at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Chinese athletes won 16 golds in 1996 and 28 in 2000.
China has finished second in the medal table in every Olympic event since 2004.
In a statement, the British Olympic Association said “we can confirm there has been an incident of theft involving a Team GB athlete returning to their accommodation”.
Chinese sports enthusiasts and leaders are gradually coming to terms to their athletes’ current medal haul during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games as Great Britain comes close to replacing China in second place.
Mt. Lebanon native Leah Smith took the bronze in the women’s 400-meter freestyle and won the gold with the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
Nigeria and Germany play in the other semifinal, with all four teams aiming for the gold medal match on Saturday.
The tweet was also accompanied by a photograph of the Chinese gymnast You Hao splayed out on the ground after falling during the men’s parallel bars final on Tuesday night.
“You’re kidding me? The country which has never finished above China is about to”, state news agency Xinhua said on its official English-language Twitter account on Monday, alongside a photo of the medals tally.
However there was disappointment for 2008 Olympic champion and Londoner Christine Ohuruogu, who missed out on the women’s 400m final after finishing fifth in her semi-final. We must pray for 3 medals though to surpass Phelps.
Nigel Currie, a sports marketing consultant who is based in London, said commercial success was most likely to belong to “the athletes that do something very unique and different in one of the top sports”. He pointed out that countries like Australia, Norway, South Korea and Great Britain have built a solid infrastructure around institutes that promote sports.
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Compared to the Chinese men’s and women’s teams in Rio, who are all in their mid-to-late twenties, half of the Japanese six player-strong team is in their early twenties alongside the teenage Ito.
