August 19, 2008	Tuesday	Sha’aban 16, 1429

BEIJING, Aug 18: China’s media on Monday celebrated the gold rush that cemented China’s position on top of the medals table at the Olympics, with some hailing the moment as a potential end to US sporting supremacy.

“China’s team is fully flowering,” commented the official Xinhua news agency after China won eight golds on Sunday. “The March of the Volunteers [China’s national anthem] is ringing out in every stadium.”

China won eight gold medals on Sunday, it biggest single-day haul in Olympic history. The success brought China’s total number of golds to 35, eclipsing its previous record haul at an Olympics of 32 at Athens in 2004.

The Beijing Morning Post ran a banner headline trumpeting China’s “Golden Smile” and said that the long supremacy of the United States was under threat.

“We have started to dream that China could surpass the sporting hegemony of the United States and become world number one in the number of gold medals,” the paper said in a front page commentary.

Publicly, China’s leadership have played down the country’s sporting ambitions but in reality its athletes have been under extreme pressure to dominate the Beijing Olympics.

In the drive to beat the previous mark set in Athens, they are fielding 639 competitors in Beijing — up from the 407 sent to Greece.

The Beijing Morning Post said that the record 35 gold medal haul — which it pointed out equalled the US gold medal total in Athens — was achieved with seven competition days still to go in the 2008 Games.

“The most popular topic now is whether China can win more than 40 gold medals,” it said.

The English-language China Daily said the home team was in contention for gold medals in table tennis, taekwondo and gymnastics and could add more in cycling, boxing, beach volleyball and sailing.

In a press conference late on Sunday, Cui Dalin, deputy chef de mission of the Chinese delegation, repeated China’s insistence that there was no official gold target and the race to top the medal standings was not a prime focus.

“We never considered surpassing someone in the medal tally as our goals,” Cui said. “I don’t have such prediction.”

He also said that the Chinese did not expect to dominate the second week of Olympic competition.

“Generally speaking, Chinese athletes are not strong contenders in many events in the second half of the Games,” said Cui.—AFP