Zhu Yi faces negative views and publicity on social media after her recent failings in one of the Ice Skating Events.

As the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics continues in full swing, China’s social media platform Weibo had a trending topic explode in views with the hashtag of “Zhu Yi has Fallen” as CNN stated. This happened after 19-year-old Zhu Yi, who went to the Olympics to represent her adoptive country of China, fell twice during the Free Skating event.

The skater has been facing a lot of insults on social media by Chinese fans according to USA Today. The article written by Ahsa C. Gilbert showed several examples of what some of the insults were. “This is such a disgrace,” one comment said with 11,000 upvotes. “Zhu Yi, how ridiculous your performance is!” another user said. “How dare you skate for China? You cannot even hold a candle to an amateur!” This hashtag continued its popularity until it was eventually censored and banned altogether. 

Zhu Yi herself told South China Morning Post when being interviewed after the event, “I’m upset and a little embarrassed.” She continued while wiping away some tears saying, “I guess I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for ladies’ singles and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do but unfortunately I didn’t.

While Chinese fans continue to express anger towards Zhu Yi on social media, this was not the first time she was hit by criticism. In fact, some already disapproved of her before the Olympics even started. This came about due to the controversy surrounding her being picked as part of China’s Ice Skating Team.

Zhu Yi was born and raised in the United States, specifically Los Angeles according to HuffPost. When deciding to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics, she made the decision to give up her U.S. citizenship to compete for China. She also changed her name from Beverly Yi to Zhu Yi. 

However, when it was decided that she would be picked on team China for the team skating event, some social media users took issue with her being chosen over other athletes who were native born athletes. As the Los Angeles Times wrote, “The whole debacle highlights the debate over naturalized athletes, and what it means to represent a country.

The criticism did not stop there. Some users on Weibo pointed out that she did not speak fluent Chinese as CBS News reported. CBS also reported that some users “spouted conspiracy theories that she was only chosen to compete for China because of her father.” Zhu Yi’s father, Song-Chun Zhu is a well known professor for teaching about artificial intelligence at the University of California in Los Angeles.

While some look down on her, some Chinese competitors have given support for Zhu Yi like figure skater Jin Boyang. As Insider pointed out, “The Chinese figure skater Jin Boyang told the Chinese state news agency Xinhua that he understood the pressure she was under.

Boyang later stated while being interviewed by Xinhua News, “I fully understand her position. I was there too,” said Jin. “She’s under huge pressure as China’s last performer in the team event short program and the sole skater in women’s figure skating, especially after her selection over the two other girls.”

He continued on, saying that the Winter Olympics is a great opportunity for any winter sports competitor to participate in. “Hopefully we can gain more strength from the fact that we’ve gone all out and made history and leave the frustration of past errors behind us.”

Zhu Yi will compete later on for the upcoming Women’s Single Skating, an individual skating competition set to take place on February 15th according to the Olympics website. You can watch this event on NBC News, Peacock, and CNBC.