Featured image credit: YouTube/Press Association
For any athlete competing on the world stage, losing is just the half of it. Then having to explain your poor performance to the press on how you have let your family, your team and worst of all yourself down is humiliating, to say the least.
A Chinese swimmer was prepared for the 'defeat speech' moment when talking to her country's press after yesterday's close 100-metre backstroke final.
It wasn't until the presenter told Fu Yuanhui that she had bagged the bronze medal that she turned that frown upside down. She thought she'd finished fourth.
Yuanhui, who came joint third place with Canada's Kyle Masse, has since become a hit on Chinese social media. Screenshots of the swimmer's elation have surfaced online.
She starts telling the reporter: "Even though I did not win a medal..."
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The reporter then stepped in to share the news that she had in fact come third in the race.
She replies: "What?! Third?"
After the reporter confirming the result she says: "I did not know. In that case it's not bad at all."
Image credit: Lee Jin-man/Press Association
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She later stood on the podium in her rightful place.
Words: Hamish Kilburn
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