China’s athletes got their Winter Olympics off to a golden start on Saturday, winning the short-track speedskating mixed team relay after the result of their semi-final was controversially overturned. The host nation looked to have been knocked out in the semi-finals on Saturday, after finishing third behind Hungary and the United States, but after protesting, the US and the team from Russia were both disqualified, leaving China to progress to the final. In the gold medal race, Wu Dajing edged Italy’s Pietro Sighel by .016 seconds, or little more than half a skate blade. Hungary earned bronze on Saturday night. Qu Chunyu, Fan Kexin and Ren Ziwei joined Wu for the historic victory, and while a tearful Wu struggled to contain his emotions afterwards, Ren said the past four years had been “very hard, really hard”. “I have thought about what to say countless times, but all I can say is that I’m happy.” Hong Kong’s athletes, meanwhile, do not start competing until later this week, but flag bearer Sidney Chu has already made an impression. Weibo was abuzz with talk of the #香港棋手好帅 – “Hong Kong’s handsome flag-bearer” – on social media and the topic shot to the second-hottest trend on the platform with more than 2.34 million posts. “What can I say? I’m a little flustered,” Chu said. “But it’s very fun and supportive to know that a lot of Chinese netizens think I’m attractive.” Chinese speed skaters cry, hug and laugh after historic gold China have been predicted to win as many as six medals, including six golds, but analysts said that might be on the low side, and with freestyle skier Eileen Gu challenging for three golds this could be the nation’s most successful Winter Games ever. Gu’s decision to represent China has already been questioned, and the teenager, who was born and raised in America, came in for renewed criticism from two US athletes, who suggested she had been motivated by money, and not for any emotional attachment to her mother’s birthplace. “It is not my place to judge, but Eileen is from California, not from China, and her decision seems opportunistic,” Former Winter X Games gold medallist Jen Hudak said. Given the political backdrop, it was unlikely the Games were going to pass without incident, and the ethnic identity of one of the final torch-bearers at Friday’s opening ceremony raised eyebrows. Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a Uygur from Altay in China’s western Xinjiang region who’s father was also an Olympian, placed the lit torch onto a giant snowflake along with Zhao Jiawen, a 21-year-old biathlete, before it was lifted high above the spectators at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. Yilamujiang’s selection as one of the final two torch-bearers came after many western nations diplomatically boycotted the Winter Games over China’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang . China is a friend to rely on, Xi Jinping tells Central Asian leaders Games organisers said the final handful of torch-bearers who entered the stadium with the flame had been picked based on their birth dates with each having been born in a different decade, starting from the 1950s through to the 2000s. “Obviously the opening ceremony is something that the organising committee put together and there’s creative input,” Mark Adams, the IOC’s spokesman, said. “We are involved to a certain extent. “This is an athlete who is competing here, she is competing this morning. She has every right, wherever she comes from, whatever her background, to compete … and to take part in any ceremony.” Ma Haiyun, an expert on Xinjiang and an associate professor at Frostburg State University in Maryland, said Yilamujiang’s selection was intended to send a message. “By selecting a Uygur athlete to light the torch, China is trying to address criticism by the West about genocide or persecution of the Uygurs, and about sinicisation of ethnic minorities,” he said. Yilamujiang is the first Chinese cross-country skiing medallist at any international federation-level event and was a medal hopeful in a sport in which China has not traditionally excelled. However, unlike the speed skaters, she could not live up to expectations, and eventually finished 43rd in the first medal event of the Games, which was won by Norway’s Therese Johuag. The Norwegians, who have been tipped to win a record 44 medals, including 21 gold, picked up their second of the day in the biathlon mixed relay, beating France and the Russian team. There were also golds for the Netherland’s Irene Schouten, who broke a 20-year-old Olympic record in the 3,000m speedskating event, Slovenia’s Ursa Bogataj who won the women’s ski jumping, and Walter Wallberg of Sweden, who dethroned the so-called King of Moguls to take home the gold in the freestyle skiing men’s moguls. The Swede looked almost in shock when his score of 83.23 flashed on the scoreboard, edging that of defending Olympic champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada. The director of the opening ceremony, meanwhile, has defended the small size of the Olympic flame which had been widely questioned overseas. Zhang Yimou, who insisted that in this instance size did matter, said the country’s commitment to battling climate change was behind the move, saying a smaller flame meant fewer emissions. “Whether you like it or not, it’s sending a clear message: the cauldron is the world and lighting it is about being environmentally friendly and having low carbon emission,” Zhang told People’s Daily , the official Communist Party Central Committee newspaper.