Olympic stars' foibles are gold winners for netizens
China's Ma Long celebrates after winning the men's table tennis singles final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
China's Ma Long won a gold medal in the men's singles table tennis on Friday, instantly taking him to the top of the trending topic list on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.
It is a historic second Olympic gold in men's singles table tennis in his career.
But it's not just his success that has gained Chinese netizens' attention, his cute behavior like repeatedly lifting his pants also made him a hot hashtag, earning 170 million views and 24,000 comments on Weibo.
Ma Long lifts his pants.
This fascination with the wider aspects of sporting stars is now common.
Chinese audiences now are not only concerned about how many gold medals the Chinese team has won, but also about the athletes' behaviors, emotions, accessories, life and other aspects.
These trending topics highlight the athletes' ordinary human side, which also allows netizens to better empathize with the hardships and joys of them standing on the Olympic stage.
For example, there are hot topics like "Sun Yiwen, the female fencer, left the field with an accidental injury," "Yang Qian and Yang Haoran, who won 10m air rifle mixed team gold, made finger hearts to the cameras."
Yang Qian in the final
Double Olympic gold medalist Yang Qian's hairpins have become bestsellers in China.
Olympic athletes' necklaces, hairpins and other adornments also spark netizens' interest.
For example, as Yang, a 21-year-old double gold medalist, has gained more popularity on social media, her yellow duck hairpin and pearl nails have become trending topics.
The yellow duck hairpin even becomes a hot item on e-commerce platforms in China. On Taobao, China's largest shopping site, some stores' monthly sales of yellow duck hairpins have exceeded 20,000.
Netizens are also trying to find the same necklace and bracelet, in the shape of two ping pong paddles, worn by Chen Meng, who won the women's singles table tennis gold.
But they later found out that those accessories were designed by Chen's father.
Chen Meng
Table tennis gold medalist Chen Meng's necklace and bracelet are also becoming sought-after item by netizens.
Furthermore, some hot hashtags revolve around hobbies and life's trivialities of Olympic athletes.
For example, shooter Yang said in an interview after the game that she wanted to eat braised prawns. Her mom responded happily: Come home and I will prepare enough for you!
Unsurprisingly the story became a trending topic on several platforms. It earned 220 million views on Weibo and became a No. 5 trending topic on Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok). Braised prawn is a speciality of Yang's hometown Ningbo, which aroused the empathy of Chinese people.
And after Chen Yuxi and Zhang Jiaqi won the women's 10-meter synchronized platform, Weibo netizens joked that "the splash of dumplings when put into the pot is even bigger than this," which also became a hot hashtag to convey their joy.
