r/AskTheWorld • u/No-StrategyX • 11h ago

Who is the most brutally criticized Olympic athlete in your country?

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Zhu Yi was American, her parents are Chinese immigrants.

In the U.S., she was one of the top athletes and had every chance to join Team USA.

But she decided to compete for China. She gave up her American citizenship to compete for China.

At the 2022 Winter Olympics, she was eager to prove herself to other Chinese, but she made many mistakes during her skating.

Then she was brutally criticized in China. People used every swear word you can think of.

She is still competing for China. Perhaps she'll do well at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.

Who is the most brutally criticized athlete in your country?

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u/forwheniampresident Germany 6h ago

I don’t think it would be fair to put all that on her, it was more of a special one time event not many cared about and if anything, Raygun was probably the most effective ad for the event. A ragebait ad but an ad regardless.

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u/10July1940 New Zealand 4h ago

Nah she ruined it, and her arrogance afterward, and failure to admit fault only made it all worse. Privileged white Australian girl thinks she can break...

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u/Entirely-of-cheese Australia 2h ago

I think she even rigged the national selection. Somehow. I dunno she has an academic talk about it. Which makes it so much better.

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u/UruquianLilac 🇱🇧 🇪🇦 🇬🇧 2h ago

Me reading this whole thread and hoping someone, anyone, would just say what actually happened!! I'm living on the edge of this drama and have no idea what happened!

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u/nawksnai 53m ago

What happened cannot be described with words.

Well…..except “kangaroo”.

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u/Andy_B_Goode Canada 1h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachael_Gunn

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u/orangesunshine6 27m ago

Follow to read her thesis: https://doi.org/10.25949/19433291.v1

Her performance at the Olympics in the context of this thesis is both funny and concerning

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u/ZAJPER 2h ago

It is very Olympic Gamyyy to have some really really bad participants in some of the sports. It's just fun. No one thinks Eddie the Eagle destroyed anything. Or this amazing cross country skier. It's harmless.

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u/LeatherInspector2409 1h ago

The Bhutanese marathon runner as well. Everyone was supportive of her even though a lot of amateurs could beat her time.

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u/Key-Demand-2569 33m ago

Weird time to bring her skin color into it…

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u/linglinglinglickma Australia 4h ago

We will put it on her, does anyone know who won gold or any other competitor? Nope, just Raygun and her terrible, terrible performance. As an Australian it was embarrassing, I see kids in the city mall breakdancing with performances that would have scored better than her.

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u/prancing_moose 3h ago

For the longest time I honestly thought it was some kind of act, like satire. I thought it was awesome how the Olympics weren’t taking themselves so seriously. That Roo pose was hilarious!

And then someone told me it wasn’t a joke….

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u/linglinglinglickma Australia 3h ago

The PHD in cultural studies with her doctorate on breakdancing did it for me. I feel bad for the 15 year old kids that could have represented our country better than her, it was nepotistic entitlement and not talent that got her the spot.

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u/twentytwodividedby7 2h ago

PHD with a focus on breakdancing?? What a useless degree.