Tokyo 2020: Chinese netizens ask why women’s teams are better than men’s
- Hashtag has had more than 100 million reads on Weibo after women’s football team qualified for Tokyo 2020
- Footballers join women’s basketball team and Olympic champion volleyballers at Summer Games but men miss out
The hashtag “Why China’s three major women’s teams have better results than the men’s team” has been read more than 100 million times on the country’s Twitter-like Weibo.
China’s women’s teams have qualified for football, basketball and volleyball in Tokyo, while the men’s teams have failed to do so.
It is the same story with rugby sevens, where the women won the Asian qualifiers, and field hockey.
There is some hope that China’s men will join their female counterparts in Tokyo – though the odds are against them.
Men’s basketball qualifiers will be finalised in June with China facing an uphill battle in their group in Victoria, Canada.
China fans congratulate Wang Shuang and women’s football team – then stick boot into men
They play Greece, led by NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, and hosts Canada. The winner plays one of Uruguay, Czech Republic and Turkey.
Neither Chinese team has qualified for the handball with qualification for beach volleyball to be settled in June as is baseball.
The world No 22 Chinese baseball team can qualify if they overcome hosts Taiwan – 4th in the world – Australia (No 6) and Netherlands (No 9) in the postponed qualifiers.
China’s softball team missed out.
“Among the eight collective ball events of the Tokyo Olympics, the Chinese team has obtained six qualifications, all of which belong to the Chinese women’s team,” says the introduction of the topic on Weibo.
“So the question is, are our collective ball events really declining?”
Tokyo 2020 might see no Chinese men’s teams after volleyball and football failures
The women’s volleyball team are the reigning champions, having won gold in Rio in 2016 with Zhu Ting named MVP.
China’s women’s footballers trended on Weibo after their 2-2 draw secured a 4-3 aggregate win over South Korea in Suzhou on Tuesday.
The hashtag “China Qualified For Tokyo 2020” generated 780 million impressions on the platform and over 200,000 discussions. It was the top trending topic across the whole site on Tuesday night.
Many commenters questioned why the men performed so poorly in comparison, with some even calling for the men’s national football team to be scrapped.
China’s men recently dropped to 77th in the Fifa world rankings, behind Curacao and Cape Verde.
