South Korean speed skater Cha Min-kyu made a controversial gesture by wiping the podium before stepping on it at the award ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Photo from web

After South Korean speed skater Cha Min-kyu lost to Chinese skater Gao Tingyu in speed skating men's 500 meters final on Saturday, he made a controversial gesture by wiping the podium before stepping on it at the award ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, appearing to hint that the competition was "unclean and unjust." His move was mocked by Chinese netizens as failing to make a point because, unlike short track speed skating, athletes in speed skating games take individual tracks and do not cross path with the other competitors. 

At the speed skating men's 500 meters final held on Saturday, Chinese skater Gao Tingyu bagged the gold and a new Olympic record with a finishing time of 34.32 seconds, followed by South Korean Cha Min-kyu with 34.39 seconds and Japanese Morishige Wataru at 34.49 seconds.

Chinese skater Gao Tingyu (center) wins gold in speed skating men's 500 meters final, followed by South Korean Cha Min-kyu (left) and Japanese Morishige Wataru (right). Photo: People's Daily

At Saturday evening's award ceremony, Cha made a move that seemed like he was wiping the podium to clean dust before he stepped on it. The gesture was inevitably seen as bearing a provocative meaning that suggested that the Games are "unclean and unjust," although according to media reports, Cha later clarified his gesture saying that the podium is very important to him and he wanted to treat it with more respect.

The gesture can be traced back to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang when it was first used by Canadian athletes to satirize the competition after they were ruled foul and disqualified from the Games in the short track speed skating 3,000 meters final. 

Cha's imitation, however, has been mocked by Chinese viewers as failing to make a point. Wang Meng, a four-time Olympic champion in short track speed skating greatly loved and respected by the Chinese audience, explained that what the Canadian team complained about was a sport event full of confrontations that test an athlete's courage, wisdom and skills, while the event that Cha was involved in was "absolutely fair" because every athlete takes an individual track and would not cross path or have confrontation with the other competitors. 

"So if he was outcompeted, it only has one possibility: he was simply not as fast as Gao," Wang said, adding that the two "are not even on the same level."

What's more, the cameras used at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics are incomparable to those of the Beijing 2022 Games, so even if there were tricks used by athletes to win, they will be caught by the 360-angle cameras and exposed to referees and athletes from around the world. 

A 4K high-definition camera system named Lie Bao, or cheetah in English, has been specifically used for broadcasting speed skating events at the Beijing 2022 Games. It can cope with a speed of 25 meters per second, equal to about 90 kilometers per hour, enabling it to closely track the athletes' movements as well as capturing various scenes during the sports events. 

Apart from Lie Bao, a ropeway camera system named Flycat, consisting of 40 4K Ultra HD cameras and three 8K VR cameras, is being used for broadcasting and also to assist in penalty calls.

Cha, 28, participated in the 2018 Winter Olympics and won a silver medal in the 500m speed skating race. He set the Olympic record for the event with a time of 34.42 seconds but had his record broken moments later by the eventual winner, Havard Lorentzen, who beat him by 0.01 second.

Global Times