Xi Jinping praises China’s Olympians for winning ‘glory for the country and people’
- President Xi Jinping meets country’s athletes at event in Beijing and says they won with ‘morality and integrity’
Chinese President Xi Jinping met the country’s Olympic heroes at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday, and praised them for their performance and sportsmanship throughout the Paris Games.
Xi said the athletes had “won glory for the country and people”, and told an audience including the likes of gold-winning swimmer Pan Zhanle, gold-carrying diver Quan Hongchan and Zheng Qinwen, who took home gold in singles tennis, to continue striving for success to further establish China as a sporting powerhouse.
China had its most successful overseas Games in the French capital, winning 40 golds to finish level with the United States. The team won 91 medals overall, just one fewer than they managed in London in 2012, the most outside the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when China won 48 golds and 100 medals in total.
The delegation’s performance has met with widespread acclaim at home and Xi said it showed China’s sporting prowess and national strength.
“The motherland and the people are proud of you and applaud you,” Xi told the athletes. “The Chinese delegation’s excellent performance in Paris has carried forward the spirit of Chinese sports, as well as the Olympic spirit.”
China has increasingly focused on sports development, which is seen as a reflection of the growing strength of the country itself, and some commentators have called the performance in Paris evidence of a continuing trend of first equalling and then overhauling the US on the world stage.
