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Source: Global Times

In the early morning of August 4th, Beijing time, in the women's tennis singles final of the Paris Olympics, 21-year-old Zheng Qinwen defeated her opponent and created history in Chinese tennis, winning the first gold medal for Chinese and even Asian athletes in this event. Earlier on August 1st, in the men's 100m freestyle final, young player Pan Zhanle significantly broke the world record and won the championship with an amazing score of 46.40 seconds.

Chinese athletes have won gold medals in swimming, tennis and other events that were previously dominated by the West, representing the overall improvement of China's competitive sports level. In fact, the Chinese swimming team has gone through the efforts of several generations of athletes to catch up with the Western powerhouses. Now that the Chinese swimming team is more confident and mature, it is not surprising to achieve these breakthroughs. Similarly, the progress of Chinese tennis is also obvious to all. In addition to Zheng Qinwen, Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen also won silver medals in the mixed doubles tennis event in this Olympics, showing that Chinese tennis has shown a transformation from "individual breakthrough" to "collective breakthrough".

Zheng Qinwen celebrates his victory at the Paris Olympics wearing the national flag

The outstanding performance of Chinese athletes also reflects the growth of China's comprehensive national strength. As we all know, competitive sports are a competition of athletes' physical fitness and skills, and it is also a comprehensive competition that integrates multiple disciplines such as nutrition, sports science, and manufacturing science. According to a survey by the British Lawn Tennis Association, it costs more than $300,000 to train a professional tennis player from the age of 5 to 18. The same is true for swimming. In terms of venues alone, swimming pools have long been popularized in Western developed countries, while developing countries started much later. Therefore, the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC has previously commented that Zheng Qinwen may be China's "best soft power."

China's breakthrough in the arena has a further meaning. In major international sports events, winning gold medals is no longer just a "topic" for developed countries. The participation and presence of countries in the "global south" are getting stronger and stronger, and they are even among the top international players. This has in fact promoted the Olympic movement to become more "international".

It is not surprising that in the face of the excellent performance and even surpassing of Chinese athletes, some people in the West were greatly "broken down" and showed their narrow-minded side. Australian swimming coach Brett Hawke is one of them. He posted a video after the 100-meter freestyle race, saying, "Chalmers, Popovich, Alexi and others are all here. You can't beat them by a whole body length in the 100-meter freestyle." "From a human perspective, this is impossible." He further asserted: "If it looks too good to be true, it is probably fake."

Pan Zhanle breaks the world record in the men's 100m freestyle final at the Paris Olympics

Hawke's words are not worth refuting. The actual performance of Chinese athletes such as Liu Xiang and Su Bingtian has long shattered the so-called "racial determinism" in the West. However, this kind of "you can't beat me, otherwise you are cheating" is not only in the sports arena. In recent years, we have "witnessed" similar performances on too many issues. For example, in the face of China's rapid development in the field of aerospace, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States once publicly said that "China joined the space race by stealing other people's technology." These are fundamentally distorted fantasies that are caused by the inability to face up to and acknowledge China's development achievements.

When faced with competition, instead of choosing to train harder, they chose to find ways to disqualify the other team. This reflects not only narrow-mindedness and tolerance, but also, to a certain extent, how the country achieved success in the past. The United States has a history of using dishonorable means to become the world's only superpower. Now these actions have also spread to the field of sports. The smearing and slander of the Chinese swimming team by the United States reflects the same narrow-minded cognition. This is not only a habitual arrogance, but also a self-imposed barrier to new information and new things. This is why the Olympic motto of "Faster, Higher, Stronger - More United" is particularly important at the moment.

Today, Chinese athletes are standing on the Olympic champion podium, which is the result of Chinese people participating in competitions around the world. In the arena, Chinese people winning championships is the same as athletes from other countries winning championships, which is the result of fair, just and open competition. There is a similar logic outside the arena. Whether in sports, economy or technology, Western countries have long been in a leading position. This position has a certain inertia, but it does not constitute a reason for the West to always lead or dominate the track. In a sense, human development itself is a track and field competition in which everyone is constantly breaking through themselves and at the same time breaking through the limits of human beings. In this regard, the struggle for fair, just and open competition is the struggle of all mankind. For the West, recognizing and respecting the progress of competitors is a kind of decency, and it may also mean new development and progress.

China wins gold in men's 4x100m medley

Many people have noticed that the new generation of Chinese athletes have increasingly demonstrated the demeanor of a great power. They naturally praise and encourage other participating athletes. Many of them can speak English fluently off the field, showing confidence and tolerance in cross-civilization exchanges. They use the global common language of sports to give the world a new understanding of China - always pursuing transcendence and breakthroughs, and always promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and promoting people-to-people exchanges in a peaceful and cooperative manner. This is true on the sports field and off the sports field.