Nation elated as team breaks medal records
The nation was gripped by euphoria yesterday as China broke the record for the number of gold medals the country has won at a Games and the number it has claimed in a single day.
On a hugely successful day for China, it won eight gold medals, taking the gold tally to 35 - three more than at the Athens Olympics - with more than a week to go at the Games. The team's previous single-day record was six, at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
The public was elated. But sports authorities moved quickly to play down the significance of the record haul by refusing to speculate if China would have more gold medals than the United States when the Games end on Sunday.
The US came top both in the number of gold medals and overall medal tally at the 2004 Games. However, it has managed to collect only 19 gold medals so far as the Beijing Games pass their halfway point.
Sun Jianhong, a human resources manager working for a computer company based in Beijing, said China had done well because it made breakthroughs in a number of events such as archery, rowing, swimming and fencing.
Ms Sun added that the athletes had also taken advantage of being the host nation, as home teams appeared to be favoured by referees or umpires in some matches she had watched on TV.
'I don't think the country can take comfort as a sports superpower as it has yet to do particularly well in soccer, basketball and volleyball. Nor has the country performed well in track and field,' she said.
Jin Yang, a third-year university student, said China's medal haul did not come as a surprise.
'The United States seems to have lost the dominant position in a number of events by losing several gold medals to other countries,' he said.
But Liu Hao, an office worker in Qingdao , noted that the whole country had been so obsessed with gold medals that they did not know how to cope with failure.
'The Chinese athletes are under enormous pressure to succeed as was the case with Du Li .'
Shooter Du Li broke down in tears after she failed to secure the first gold that China had hoped for.
During a press conference in Beijing yesterday, Cui Dalin , deputy director of the China Olympic team, warned that China would have little advantage in events in the latter half of the Games, so the rate of picking up gold medals would slow down.
The United States lagged behind the Chinese team in gold medals but still topped the overall medal tally with 65 medals, a reflection of a country's overall strength in sport, Mr Cui said.
'We didn't attend the Olympics in a bid to overtake a certain country in the gold medal count,' he said.
