Team China shines at Paris Games

Chinese weightlifter Luo Shifang wins the gold medal in the women's 59-kilogram division at the Paris Olympics on Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese weightlifter Luo Shifang won the gold medal in the women's 59-kilogram division at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, marking the third gold for the nation's weightlifting team at the Games.

Luo's medal brought China's gold haul in Paris to 28.

Previously, both Li Fabin, the defending Olympic champion in the men's 61kg division, and Hou Zhihui, who was gold medalist in the women's 49kg division at the Tokyo Games, retained their titles.

Luo, 23, ranked No 1 in both the snatch event, with 107kg, and the clean and jerk, with 134kg, setting three Olympic records, in snatch, clean and jerk, and total weight. Maude Charron of Canada took silver and Kuo Hsing-chun of Chinese Taipei claimed bronze.

Meanwhile, propelled by strength and steered by willpower, Chinese paddlers Liu Hao and Ji Bowen won China's third straight Olympic title in the men's canoe double 500-meter.

Boasting strong pushes individually and exceptional synchronization of pace in the sprint, Liu and Ji started the final strong to take an early lead. They clinched the gold by paddling past the finish line first in one min, 39.48 sec, while Italy's Gabriele Casadei and Carlo Tacchini won silver and Spain's Joan Antoni Moreno and Diego Dominguez took the bronze.

The Chinese duo's three-peat followed a 16-year wait, after the double 500m was excluded from the past three Games' sports programs, from 2012 to 2021, before its return in Paris.

China's legendary duo of Yang Wenjun and Meng Guanliang, both retired, claimed back-to-back gold medals in the double event at two previous Olympic regattas — Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 — to become the first and only pair in the world to defend the title.

"With everything just falling into place, I feel we had a magical race today," said Ji, a 22-year-old native of Zhejiang province who made his Olympic debut in Paris.

"We started out fast, took an early lead, and from there we were just paddling as hard as we could to our own pace, and the result came as expected.

"To make it happen on a memorable day for all the Chinese Olympians, I am so excited and satisfied," said Ji, who only started to partner with Liu, a two-time Olympian, at the end of 2021.

The golden race on Thursday capped the steady progress of Liu and Ji during the Paris Olympic cycle on a high note, following their bronze finish at the 2022 world championships and silver at the 2023 world championships.

Since China is the only Asian country to ever have won medals in the event, the nation's future as a dominant force is in good hands, said Liu.

"In Tokyo I took two silver medals, so winning the gold medal means a lot to me, and it's very important for my country as well. It's compensation for what I've done up until now," said Liu, a runner-up in single and double 1000m at Tokyo 2020.

Ji "is very young and motivated; he will be the future of China," said Liu, who pushed with Ji to reach an Olympic record time of 1:37.40 in their heats on Tuesday.

On Thursday at the Paris Aquatics Centre, China's invincible diving team also maintained its golden streak after men's divers Xie Siyi and Wang Zongyuan finished No 1 and No 2, respectively, in the 3m springboard final to grab the Chinese diving team's sixth gold and second silver in the pool.

After winning six out of six disciplines by the end of Thursday, the Chinese diving "dream team" stayed on course to achieve the clean sweep of all eight gold medals in diving at the Olympics for the first time in history.