Burdened By China's Gold Standard

The People's Daily said that "losers need more warm support from the society and from all walks of life. A little bit of your encouragement and attention will help them out of the shadow of failure, warm them up, inspire them and make them feel more confident."

Li Yanyan, 27, China's first world wrestling champion, said Chinese athletes feel extra pressure because they're competing on their own soil. The Chinese media had expressed hope that Li would medal, but he lost to a Kazakh wrestler in the quarterfinals of his division.

"I wanted to perform okay at home," Li said. "And if I lost, not lose too badly."

In Beijing, the Chinese public -- from taxi drivers to top leaders -- are all closely monitoring the medal count. Television and radio shows provide almost constant updates about how many medals Chinese athletes have racked up, along with how their haul compares with that of their biggest rival -- the Americans.

Commentators have showered praise on winners with flowery, over-the-top prose. Zhong Man's golden saber "lit up Chinese hearts" when he won the gold in fencing. Seventeen-year-old Long Qingquan was "exuberant and fearless" when he grabbed gold in the men's 56kg weightlifting event.

But as the Olympic Games continue and the list of Chinese medal winners gets longer, so does the list of losers.

The latest target is China's women's volleyball team, which lost 2-3 Friday to the United States while President Hu Jintao was in the audience.

China's soccer team, long the butt of jokes, failed to advance to the knockout stage of the tournament after being pummeled 3-0 by Brazil on Wednesday night. The China Daily newspaper featured a special box this week quoting people insulting the team.

Likewise, Wang Lei and Tan Xue, both top-ranked fencers expected to win gold, were ridiculed after failing to medal. Tan Zongliang, who was expected to win the gold but instead got a bronze in the 50m air pistol shooting competition, was also portrayed as a failure. He "acknowledges his disappointing Olympic record is due to his inability to handle the pressure," the China Daily said.

Wang Jian, the coach for China's fencing team, which won one gold medal but was expected to win as many as five, acknowledged the burden. "Athletes have more pressure competing on home field," Wang said. "No matter how good an athlete you are, you are inevitably faced with huge psychological pressure competing under these circumstances. Inevitably you make mistakes."

No one has lost as prominently as Du, a 26-year-old shooter who took the gold in Athens.

Born in the coal-mining province of Shandong, Du was first noticed by a sports school teacher. The coach, recognizing that she had perfect vision, wanted to train her in shooting, but her father, who worked as a policeman, refused. He dreamed his daughter would go to college and become a lawyer, according to a profile in the Hong Kong newspaper Wenweipo. Finally, her grandfather convinced her parents that it would be good for her future.