The skater fought till the end despite a serious injury and got nothing in return but abuse. Kindness cannot be expected from all, but can one live without even the slightest bit of compassion?
Beverly Zhu, known in China as Zhu Yi, a U.S.-born figure skater and naturalized athlete competing for China at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, has been the target of severe abuse on Chinese social media platforms.
In the 20 days from her selection on Jan. 17 to competing on Feb. 6, Zhu was severely attacked on social media platforms, which brought unimaginable mental pressure to her.
Even when she had done nothing wrong, she had to take endless abuse from netizens, meaning her suffering began before her errors in the game.
Some people asked why Zhu was allowed to represent China in the figure skating competition despite her unsatisfactory performance. From the perspective of those raising the question, she could silence their criticism by winning a medal, and if she failed, it would be proof that their abuse was justified.
Some have even linked her participation to her father, a successful scientist, and believed that he affected the decision of the General Administration of Sport of China (GAS) and the Chinese judges who participated in the selection.
Their thinking that a scientist could influence this decision merely shows that they have a deluded view of Chinese scientists. The truth is that Chinese scientists have never had such great impacts, and China’s sports administration attaches far greater importance to athletes than scientists.
The GAS conducted five rounds of selection with several different judges to select participating athletes. According to the disclosed rules, judges are changed every round and the discipline inspection department participates in all five rounds of the selection. Under this system, most officials could not manage to influence the process, let alone scientists.
Zhu was the first naturalized athlete invited by China. This decision was based on the potential she had shown in the junior women’s competition in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. At that time, the GAS knew nothing about her father other than that he was working as a professor abroad.
Only after hearing about the naturalization of his daughter did Peking University and Tsinghua University invite Zhu Songchun, father of Beverly Zhu, to return to China.
It is clear that it is not her father who helped her claim a spot in the Winter Olympics team, as she returned before him.
Those questioning the selection have gotten both time and causality wrong.
They first proclaimed her and her family guilty and then asked Beverly Zhu, her family and the GAS to prove their innocence. This would have caught the GAS by surprise. The sports officials might be wondering, “Why do we have to prove that we don’t know a professor? And what does this have to do with sports? If this is how things are run, we might as well just ask the public to score the athletes instead of using professional judges.”
Zhu Songchun is a professor for whom both Peking University and Tsinghua University competed. However, no matter how much they want to hire a professor like Zhu, there are still rules and procedures to follow. Some of the researchers at the institute that Zhu heads also serve as professors, associate professors or assistant professors at Peking University. I have been on the appointment committee for the science and engineering disciplines of Peking University and I once voted against some of the people on professor Zhu’s proposed list.
A scientist of the level of Zhu, who believes science is the crystallization of human civilization, will definitely not overvalue the results of competitions, but he will respect his kid’s strong suits and hobbies.
Like me and many of my friends, Zhu is an American tenured professor and has good knowledge of how admission works. Our kids all play some sports. All it takes for them to get accepted to a good American university like Harvard or Yale is to do well in an average high school team or a small regional competition.
For the first time, to strengthen my reasoning, I am going to reveal my daughter’s privacy. She’s a high school volleyball player, which is enough for her to apply to all prestigious universities in the U.S. In fact, she has been accepted by all of the universities she has applied to, including Harvard and Princeton. Professor Zhu would not put his daughter at the risk of being hurt by skates just so that she could get into a good American university.
Scientists like me are willing to support their children’s interests to see how far the children can go. In their eyes, most Olympic gold medals are not as important as science, and sports is often very hard to make a living off. In the U.S., many Olympic gold medalists just work as instructors in extracurricular PE classes for children and teenagers.
When it comes to conflicts between sports and studies, most scientists will ask their children to go easy on the sports. They respect their children’s sports interests but will not go to great extremes to make their children win prizes. Winning awards in sports is a good thing, but not if it comes at the expense of personal integrity.
When the Chinese figure skating community saw Beverly Zhu’s potential in 2018, it was impossible to foresee that she would later suffer from a serious injury — getting a skate stuck in her right foot — that would take a long time to recover from. During the trials, no one could predict the outbreak of the pandemic that would affect everyone’s training and participation in the international competitions.
It is impossible for China’s ice sports agency to make a 100% accurate judgment or estimation of the potential and performance of athletes. Besides, the fact that the agency sent a naturalization invitation to Eileen Gu after Zhu was naturalized shows that the identification of, and invitations to, these athletes was reasonable.
After getting injured, Zhu has continued to work hard. Relevant people in this country are also aware of her injury. The fact that no other Chinese athlete was selected indicated they were not as good as her, and that she was the best choice. The result in the competition just shows that Chinese ice sports still have a long way to go.
We should have compassion for such a young athlete who suffered a serious injury but who still fights because of her love for the sport and her will to represent her country.
It is not very common to see Chinese intellectual families supporting children in sports. Eileen Gu, the child of Gu Yan, an alumnus of Peking University who got a degree in Chemical Engineering, and Beverly Zhu, the child of Zhu Songchun, a professor at Peking University and Tsinghua University, are rare examples.
If they succeed, we should be happy for them.
If they fail, we should acknowledge their great efforts and give them cheers.
Rao Yi is a neurobiologist and currently president of Beijing’s Capital Medical University. He moved back to China from the U.S. to take the deanship of Peking University’s School of Life Science in 2007.
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