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Who said anything about gold medals?
China is investing a record amount to host this summer’s Olympic Games, but its leaders don’t expect to displace the United States atop the medal tally, a top Chinese official said.
Despite maintaining a massive system of state-run schools that find and train the nation’s top athletes and dramatically boosting funding for the national team over recent years, “it is unrealistic to expect China to earn more gold medals than the US,” said Cui Dalin, a deputy director of China’s State General Administration of Sport, the Beijing Today newspaper reported on Friday.
Many experts, however, think Chinese officials are simply trying to downplay expectations. A report released last Monday by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that China will top the United States in the medal count by a tally of 88 to 87.
“As the host nation in Beijing and (with) an economy which has grown very strongly since 2004,” China is likely to win 88 medals at the Games, said John Hawksworth, the report’s author, the Associated Press reported.
“David can sometimes slay Goliath in the Olympic arena,” he said.
China won 63 medals during the Athens’ Games, finishing behind the United States’ 102 medals and Russia’s 92. China won 32 gold medals in Athens, second behind the the United States’ 35.
Many experts believe China has adopted a gold-or-bust strategy where athletes - often driven to excel by monetary rewards - are put through grueling training that stress perfection.
Beijing may be trying to keep medal expectations low to avoid possible embarrassment. But Cui predicted that China’s athletes would have advantages in taekwondo, diving, ping pong, shooting and weightlifting.
“Chinese athletes have made breakthroughs in some sports, such as boxing, rowing, sailing, fencing, men’s wrestling, the pentathlon and trampoline, but the results are less certain,” Beijing Today reported.
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