Author | Yan Wuxie
On October 1, the women's 100m final of the Hangzhou Asian Games, Chinese athletes Lin Yuwei and Wu Yanni competed. In the end, Lin Yuwei won the championship with a personal best time of 12.74 seconds.
Wu Yanni restarted after the run, finishing second in 12.77 seconds, but because of the previous run, the result was eventually canceled.
The incident caused heated discussions among netizens on the Internet, and "Wu Yanni rushed to run" and "Wu Yanni's results were canceled" quickly became hot search terms.
In particular, online comments show a polarized situation, and many netizens are reasonable, empathetic, and comfort Wu Yanni from the perspective of her, and the heart-warming words make people feel like a spring breeze.
However, there are also some vicious netizens who speak viciously to each other and sneer at them mercilessly, "becoming a laughing stock", "only hype", "athletes should learn to keep a low profile", all kinds of criticism voices rushed to the face, and there was a great tendency to kill them, as if Wu Yanni had done something heinous.
What did she do wrong that deserves everyone's criticism?
This scene seems familiar, and some Chinese people seem to be intolerant of these athletes who have made great contributions to our sports cause.
"Asian flyer" Liu Xiang, who won numerous honors for China and was the first Chinese male athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in athletics, suffered unimaginable "online violence" because of his withdrawal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics due to injury, and was ridiculed by netizens as the "best actor", and finally left the scene and disappeared from everyone's sight;
On October 1, 2022, the Chinese women's basketball team won the runner-up of the World Cup, and the main player of the team, Li Meng, was absent due to fever. After the game, Li Meng posted a blog to celebrate winning the silver medal, but some netizens "online violence" Li Meng in the Weibo comment area, and the abuse was endless.
In the World Women's Volleyball League held on June 27, 2023, the Chinese women's volleyball team lost 1-3 to the Serbian women's volleyball team, unfortunately suffering three consecutive defeats.
After the game, there was criticism of the women's volleyball players on the Internet, and there were even some unbearable insults. Wang Yunbi, the main attacker of the Chinese women's volleyball team, posted a screenshot of a netizen insulting himself many times on Weibo, and @ the capital Internet police.
Through these cases, we can see the logic of these netizens:
Athletes are not allowed to make any mistakes, and regardless of fever or injury, they must also bring illness to the field, otherwise it will be questioning their duties at best, insulting and insulting at worst, and some even eighteen generations of ancestors have greeted them.
Is it really good to treat our athletes like this?
There are no winning generals on the field, and no matter what sport, it is not so easy for athletes to win medals in their careers.
Moreover, the competitive status of athletes is also affected by the physical and mental health of the day, and there is no guarantee that they can perform 100% of their level every competition.
Results are important in competitive sports, but the effort of athletes to break through themselves is more powerful and meaningful than the final numbers.
Moreover, the meaning of the Olympic spirit should not be determined by the gold medal, but the spirit of participation, perseverance and pursuit of dreams without giving up.
For these athletes who have gone all out for the competition but have not achieved good results, we must give enough respect and tolerance so that they will not shed tears and chill their hearts.
For those athletes who cannot participate due to unexpected circumstances such as physical health, we should give them moral support, rather than unwarranted speculation, malicious slander, and salt on their scars.
Let's go back to Wu Yanni, first of all, an important reason why Wu Yanni caused so many people's condemnation this time is that Wu Yanni returned to the track to continue the race after the first shot, making people mistakenly think that Wu Yanni did not understand politeness and flouted the rules.
In fact, the rules of athletics make it clear that athletes can dispute the result of the penalty and allow the athlete to continue to complete the competition, if it is still considered a violation after the competition, the athlete's performance will be canceled.
Therefore, many netizens insulted Wu Yanni without clarifying the truth of the matter, which is very unfair to Wu Yanni.
She may be eager to win, and she wants to win this gold medal for the country, so she did not control her speed to "rush".
And running and losing the game is already very painful for Wu Yanni, why should we pour dirty water on her to slander a sports athlete who wins glory for the country?
Of course, in addition to the controversy caused by this "rushing" behavior, it is also everyone's "prejudice" against their usual gestures and tattoos that makes it the target of everyone.
At the Chengdu Universiade held before the Asian Games, Wu Yanni broke through the silver medal with a proud time of 12.76 seconds in the 100m hurdles final, and qualified for the Paris Olympics, and her strength also won everyone's praise.
However, netizens with ulterior motives began to grab her signature movements before running and the tattoo on her right arm, and accused her of "just wanting to be an Internet celebrity to rub traffic", "like a little sister", "no athlete look" and so on. But thousands of people, athletes also have their own personality, iconic gestures cannot be equated with no one in sight, and tattoos are not exclusive to "little sisters".
Everyone looks at popular events abroad, each foreign athlete has his own personality and domineering, this is a very beautiful thing in athletes, why can't it be placed in China?
A pluralistic society should be able to tolerate a Wu Yanni with personality, instead of wearing colored glasses and using the "prejudice" in her heart to ugly and attack it.
As the classic saying in the book: "Prejudice makes me unable to love others, and arrogance prevents others from loving me." "Only when one lets go of one's prejudices can one see better things.
Therefore, we must abandon prejudice and look at the things around us with a kind eye in order to discover the brilliance of others.
If the mainland's sports industry wants to be evergreen, it needs not only powerful athletes, but also rational and mature audiences.
Only by respecting and understanding the difficulties of athletes can more athletes feel warmth, create better results, and form a more benign scope of competition.