TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's badminton duo on Sunday (Aug. 4) not only captured the country's first gold medal in Paris, but their win resulted in the Taiwan flag anthem being played in front of Chinese athletes for the second time in Olympics history.
After a 75-minute battle in the men's badminton doubles finals, Lee Yang (李洋) and Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) defeated the World No. 1 pair from China, Liang Weikeng (梁偉鏗) and Wang Chang (王昶), while Malaysia's Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh took their second-straight bronze. During the medal award ceremony, Taiwan's white Olympic flag rose to the tune of the country's national flag, which was not broadcast in China.
In a video, audience members could be seen waving Taiwan's Olympic banner and Chinese and Malaysian flags. France is enforcing a ban on the display of Taiwan's national flag and towels that mention Taiwan at the Paris Games.
Coverage of the gold medal match was delayed twice by China's state-run Olympic channel CCTV-16, while other sports channels such as CCTV-5 and CCTV-5+ broadcast footage of other or previous events, per NowNews. Amid complaints on Weibo about the lack of coverage CCTV-16 began broadcasting the match's second game at around 11 p.m.
In the third game, when Lee and Wang won, the CCTV commentator immediately announced that, “The broadcast ends here.” Chinese government coverage of the match only lasted about 40 minutes and the awards ceremony was skipped entirely.
The first time the anthem was played before Chinese competitors was after Lee and Wang's victory over China's Liu Yuchen (劉雨辰) and Li Junhui (李俊慧) at the Tokyo Games. The song dates back to the 1930s and is normally played after the national anthem during flag ceremonies.
Pressure from China has prevented Taiwan's national anthem from being played at the Olympics. Instead, the Taiwan flag anthem has been played, but the lyrics for the song were changed for the Olympics, with references to the actual national flag taken out.
