Wang Liping, an ethnic Manchu, representing China, became an Olympic champion by winning the 20-kilometer event.
This race was full of twists and turns.
The second Wang Liping first showed up in the stadium first, over 110,000 people sat there in the stadium in shock, as she took her first place and won her gold medal.
No one could imagine that such a moment deserving of a celebration would soon become so awkward, yet sad.
After Wang Liping got first place, she excitedly cheered at the audience with her arms in the air, but the entire stadium was dead silent. The audience is all filled with disbelief as if they do not know what just happened. Who is this Asian woman? How on earth is she first? Where is our Australian Olympian? Only a translator near the edge of the field gave this woman a hug.
The entire stadium only had this one Chinese person, and there wasn't even a Chinese flag found. She looked around anxiously from left to right, but still couldn't find a single Chinese flag and could only hold back her tears.
Instead of proudly wearing her country's flag cape around the stadium and receiving applause for all her hard work.
She awkwardly walked around the stadium with empty hands
For years she said she couldn't get herself to watch the video of her winning the Olympics because every time she sees it, makes her want to cry. She dedicated all her life, and even put her health on the line for this result. It became one of her biggest sorrow and regret.
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Thanks for that. I'd never heard of this. Got curious. She said that when she got back to China even the journalists ignored her. Looks like a lot of walkers committed fouls, and walking wasn't a key Chinese sport, but she had a really hard road to get there. You'd think that alone would mean something.
In Sydney, Wang finally took the gold after the other race leaders were disqualified for committing fouls. Since she was not China's leading gold-medal hope, Wang was considered a dark horse. Her victory was attributed more to luck than real strength and some media called it a plotted strategy within the Chinese race walking team.
"I was very angry at the time because when I came back to China, most of the journalists asked me the same question about the gold medal," said Wang. "Race walking is an event that is full of accidents. I won because my techniques had been approved by the referees."
