Sour grapes can't mar Gao's achievement

On Saturday, Chinese athlete Gao Tingyu won the men's 500-meter speed skating gold at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

At the medal ceremony, Gao jumped onto his golden position with joy. Yet South Korean athlete Cha Minkyu, who got silver, made a quite weird gesture by wiping the podium before stepping on it.

Cha did not say why he did it, but the move has been widely interpreted as a protest against the disqualification of Hwang Dae-heon in the men's 1000-meter speed skating competition for an illegal late pass.

The International Skating Union had already turned down Hwang's appeal on Feb 8, and even Hwang himself admitted having broken the newly revised rules in an interview.

In the Winter Olympics, there are often controversies over judgments despite multi-person judging panels that can watch slow-motion replays of incidents viewed from different angles.

A good example must be Chinese athlete Su Yiming who won silver in the snowboard slopestyle competition on Feb 7. Many said that Su should have won gold because the winner made an error that the judges failed to notice.

Despite losing out, Su and his coach stayed calm. That is the right attitude. Cha's gesture was obviously disrespectful to Gao and the other competitors as well as the judges.

Participation in the Olympics means to challenge oneself to make greater achievements. Gao's winning of the gold medal is a good demonstration of the Olympic spirit as he set a new Olympic record.

Hwang too won the respect of Chinese netizens by showing his ability in winning the 1500-meter short track final without controversy, two days after his disqualification from the 1000-meter race.

All the athletes should strive to do their best, staying within the rules.