| Translate This News In |
|---|
Zhu Yi, a Chinese figure skater born in California, has come under fire on Chinese social media after falling short in her Olympic debut on Sunday.
The hashtag “Zhu Yi fell” is a top trending topic on Weibo, with roughly 200 million views in a couple of hours, with some fans requesting that an American-born skater represent China over a country-born player. , Why was it chosen?
“It’s such a shame,” one commenter with 11,000 “likes” stated.
Zhu, 19, was the first competitor on the second day of the figure skating team competition, sliding over the ice at Beijing’s Capital Indoor Stadium to the loud screams of the predominantly Chinese audience.
However, she fell on the ice after a failed leap in the first combination and missed another jump later in the event, finishing with the lowest score in the event.
As a consequence, China dropped from third to fifth position, good enough to advance to the next round of the competition.
Unlike the internet backlash, the stadium audience cheered Zhu when she bowed in front of the stands.
Chinese athletes are under great pressure to perform well in the Olympics, with the Chinese leadership viewing high medal counts as a show of national strength. Many people have suffered criticism in the past for bad performance.
Zhu is one of at least a dozen foreign-born athletes recruited by China in recent years in a bid to boost the country’s medal count at the Winter Olympics. However, the assault on them emphasizes the strain on these natural athletes to participate under the Chinese banner.
She was born in Los Angeles in 2002 and gave up her US citizenship to compete for China in 2018. Her name was also changed from Beverly Zoo to Zhu Yi.
In China, though, he has been chastised for not speaking Chinese fluently.
