China reign supreme at Beijing Olympics

Ranjeeva Seneviratne

The People’s Republic of China has made vast strides in the spheres of science, medicine and technology during the last two decades to emerge as a superpower. The latest addition to their achievements is in the field of sports where they won a record Gold Medal haul of 51 at the Beijing Olympics surpassing other superpowers such as United States, Russia, Britain and France.

Since their advent into the Olympics in 1984 at Los Angeles the Chinese have made steady progress and have increased their medals haul at every Olympics. The forte of the Chinese have been swimming and diving, table tennis, badminton, judo and gymnastics in which they have bagged Gold medals during the last six Olympics.

But performing in front of their home fans the Chinese sports stars came up with a stupendous performance to win Golds in sports hitherto dominated by other countries such as boxing, weightlifting, sailing, fencing, shooting, rowing, archery and Trampoline much to the joy of millions of Chinese who cheered lustily.

In addition to their strong point of gymnastics in which they bagged nine Gold medals the Chinese came up with a marvellous display to clinch six Golds in weightlifting - men’s 56 kg, 62 kg, 69 kg and women’s 58 kg, 69 kg and 75 kg. In shooting they won the men’s 10 m Air pistol, women’s 10 m Air pistol, 25 m pistol and 50 m rifle.

They also bagged the women’s Individual Event in archery, Women’s Quadruple sculls in rowing, Men’s Individual sabre in fencing, Women’s 72 kg in wrestling, men’s and women’s events in Trampoline, Women’s 49 kg event in Taekwondo and in canoeing the Double (C2) 500 m (men’s).

In boxing they came up with a remarkable display to clinch the men’s light heavy 81 kg and men’s light fly 48 kg - a sport which had been dominated by countries such as USA, Cuba and Thailand in the past.

The Chinese sports stars have been training hard for more than two years under the watchful eyes of their dedicated coaches and have been richly rewarded for their efforts by ending up on top of the medals table in the Olympics conducted on home territory to the delight of the millions of Chinese sports fans who watched the Olympics.

The government of the People’s Republic of China too played a major role in their success by providing the maximum support for their athletes - training facilities, dedicated coaches, nutrition and medical care to achieve their ambition of emerging as the leading sporting nation of the world.