A month has passed since the Winter Olympics, but people are still talking about China's two women's figure skaters. Earlier this year, China secured a spot in the women's singles in figure skating at the Winter Olympics. That means China can only field one player in women's singles.
However, China currently has three women's figure skaters qualified for the Winter Olympics. They are Lin Shan, Chen Hongyi and Zhu Yi. Lin Shan and Zhu Yi, both American nationals, are now Chinese nationals, making them eligible to compete. The two most controversial are Chen Hongyi and Zhu Yi. I'd like to start with a little background on these two men.
Chen Hongyi has been famous in China since she was a child, and her skills represent the highest level of Chinese women's singles. She has been preparing hard for the Olympics for years. She represented China to participate in many international events, although the performance in the international events is not very satisfactory, she still won a place for China in the Winter Olympics. However, last year Chen Hongyi quit the national team, transferred to the provincial team. This means that Chen Hongyi has made a mistake and has been expelled from the national team or her skill level has dropped too much to represent the country. But the reason for her retirement from the national team has not been made public.
Zhu yi grew up in the United States and was previously an American citizen. But with the opportunity to compete in the Winter Olympics, she changed her nationality to China. Her father is a very famous scientist, which is her most controversial point. Her family is much richer and more educated than Chen's. However, her skills in the previous look and Chen Hongyi superb. No matter from the performance of each match, or the world ranking, her ranking is not higher than Chen Hongyi.
So In January, China held trials to select one of its athletes for the Winter Olympics. There are three trials, and the person with the highest score in the three trials will qualify for the Winter Olympics. However, this audition will not be open to the public. This proves that the public can't see the performance of the players and directly know which players are in the competition. So that's one of the reasons why it was so controversial later, because people didn't see the process, they only saw the outcome.
After three games, the selection was made. China will send Zhu Yi to the Winter Olympics. The Chinese public reacted with instant rejection and disapproval. The reasons lie in that, first of all, Zhu Yi's existing videos show that her skills and comprehensive strength are indeed not as good as Chen Hongyi. Secondly, there are some problems in sino-US relations, but since Zhu Yi has been an American citizen before, Chinese people have a bad feeling about Zhu Yi at first. They think zhu yi changed nationality just for the Winter Olympics, too utilitarian. Finally, and most controversially, because Zhu Yi's father is a famous scientist. Not long ago, the state invited Zhu Yi's father back to do advanced research. Internet users used the incident to argue that it was because of his father's help that Zhu yi was able to compete in the Winter Olympics. Internet users began abusing Zhu, who was only 19 years old, on the Internet. Due to Zhu Yi's young age, she could not bear so many people's abuse. In the Winter Olympics, she did not perform well and placed badly. So the net made friends through this matter, and began a new round of attacks on Zhu Yi.
In contrast, Chen Hongyi, who did not qualify for the Winter Olympics, has won many admirers online. Netizens have been praising Chen while scolding Zhu. This made Chen Hongyi, who was not famous at first, become a hot topic among Chinese people in a short period of time. People made a lot of comparison videos, all just to show that Chen Hongyi's ability is better than Zhu Yi. Zhu Yi had the opportunity to participate in the competition because her father found connections for her.
In the Winter Olympic Games, Zhu Yi suffered a great psychological setback, playing very badly. After watching the game, netizens became more and more critical of Zhu. Zhu was also a top search on Chinese social media platforms. Zhu yi did not perform well in both the team and individual events, and finally failed to enter the free skating competition.
Netizens also criticized her for not speaking fluent Chinese. As she grew up in the United States, her Chinese is not particularly good. Some people began to spread rumors that Zhu Yi could not speak Chinese. This has become the reason for many people to scold her. But when Zhu answered questions in fluent Chinese after the competition, the people slowly realized they were wrong. In turn, they began to blame Chen Hongyi in order to make Zhu Yi play abnormally, and deliberately as a marketing Zhu Yi.
This is the Chinese team in the history of the Winter Olympics in a very chaotic way. At the same time, it also reveals that the public blindly follows the footsteps of others, leading to their own wrong or unfair judgment.
4/14/22