China is celebrating its best-ever performance at an overseas Olympics after winning the same number of golds as the\u00a0United States\u00a0at the Paris 2024 Games. <\/p>\n
Both countries finished with 40 golds, marking the first ever tie for total golds at the Summer Games \u2013 but the US claimed\u00a0top spot overall with 126 medals to China\u2019s 91. <\/p>\n
The race was dramatically close as the\u00a0two sporting superpowers went head-to-head in yet another aspect of their geopolitical rivalry in a Games that was at times overshadowed by a doping controversy. <\/p>\n
China has become one of the world\u2019s most competitive sporting nations in recent decades, seeing its Olympic performance as a symbol of national strength.\u00a0In 2008, it topped the gold medal table at the Beijing Games, surpassing the US for the first time. <\/p>\n
In Paris, the Chinese team appeared on course to top the medal table as it built up a sizable early lead over Team USA, thanks to its domination in shooting and diving. But as track and field events got underway, the US quickly caught up \u2013 then eventually overtook its rival. <\/p>\n
China is only the third country after the US and the former Soviet Union to top the gold medal count at a Summer Olympics away from home soil \u2013 and Chinese state media hailed the \u201crecord-breaking\u201d haul from Paris. <\/p>\n
\u201cChinese analysts said this proves that the success of Chinese modernization can bring not only economic growth, but also can benefit the development of public health, as well as the environment for sports industries, to effectively energize \u2018sports for all,\u2019\u201d the state-run Global Times said. <\/p>\n
Chinese social media also celebrated the team\u2019s performance with a burst of national pride, with many users criticizing what they\u00a0said was as an unfair attempt by US officials to smear China with persistent doping allegations against its swim team. <\/p>\n
On microblogging site Weibo, the hashtag \u201cChina tied for first place on the gold medal leaderboard\u201d became the top trending topic, racking up more than 500 million views. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe won every gold medal square and fair!\u201d said a top comment with over 28,000 likes. <\/p>\n
Others argued China should have surpassed the US with a total of 44 golds by adding the medals from Hong Kong and Taiwan. <\/p>\n
Taiwan competes at the Olympics as Chinese Taipei to avoid objections from China, whose ruling Communist Party claims the democratically governed island as its own territory despite having never controlled it. <\/p>\n
Hong Kong, a former British colony, competes as Hong Kong, China at the Olympics. <\/p>\n
China\u2019s swim team faced intense scrutiny in Paris following revelations that\u00a0nearly half the group\u00a0that Beijing sent to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 had months earlier tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance. <\/p>\n
The swimmers had been cleared by the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) shortly before the Tokyo Games, after it ruled that the positive tests for a banned heart medication were the result of contamination, likely from a hotel restaurant. The global sports doping watchdog World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted the assessment without an appeal. <\/p>\n
The\u00a0accusations, first reported by the New York Times and German public broadcaster ARD in April, have sparked\u00a0backlash in the swimming world, where doping can result in years-long bans for athletes who violate the rules. <\/p>\n
Concern only deepened last month, after WADA acknowledged a separate 2022 case in which two Chinese swimmers tested positive for trace amounts of a banned anabolic steroid. They were provisionally suspended but later cleared of a violation by Chinese officials \u2013 again citing contamination linked to food, WADA said. <\/p>\n
In China, where the swim team has long been a source of Olympic glory, the doping allegations brought outrage and accusations of unfair treatment \u2013 with many seeing it as an attempt by the US to sabotage the Chinese team at the Games. <\/p>\n
The Chinese Embassy in Washington accused the US of \u201cusing the doping issue to smear and suppress China,\u201d while\u00a0CHINADA\u00a0and state media have accused the US of \u201cdouble standards\u201d in handling drugs scandals. <\/p>\n
Last week, CHINADA called for more intensive testing of American track and field athletes, citing past doping controversies in the US \u2013 and highlighting the case of sprinter Erriyon Knighton, who finished fourth in the men\u2019s 200-meters in Paris. <\/p>\n
Knighton was provisionally suspended after testing positive for a banned substance in March, but he was cleared to compete in Paris after an independent arbitrator determined his failed drug test was \u201cmore likely than not\u201d caused by contaminated meat, according to the US Anti-Doping Agency. <\/p>\n
On Monday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV posted an article on social media with the headline: \u201cThe Olympics Games have ended, but the shocking questions about the \u2018United States of Addicts\u2019 cannot be left unanswered.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe next Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, USA. To restore the world\u2019s confidence in American sports, the US owes an explanation to the world,\u201d the article said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
China is celebrating its best-ever performance at an overseas Olympics after winning the same number of golds as the\u00a0United States\u00a0at the Paris 2024 Games. Both countries finished with 40 golds, marking the first ever tie for total golds at the Summer Games \u2013 but the US claimed\u00a0top spot overall with 126 medals to China\u2019s 91. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}