Gold rush delivers a perfect finish

As Chinese athletes delivered a series of stunning performances at the Paris Olympics this past weekend, resulting in a record haul of medals, three key words and phrases — dominance, breakthroughs and a perfect finish — prevailed in conversations across social media platforms.

On Sunday evening at South Paris Arena, Li Wenwen won the women's+ 8 1 — kilogram weightlifting event, securing the fifth gold for the Chinese weightlifting team at this Olympics. Her victory earned China its 40th gold at the Paris Games, nicely capping the delegation's medal quest.

Saturday evening saw the perfect finish for China's table tennis and diving "dream teams", which have won all 13 titles up for grabs in the two disciplines.

The table tennis competition wrapped up with China defeating Japan 3-0 in the women's team final, securing its fifth consecutive Olympic championship in the event and also winning China its fifth table tennis title at this edition of the Games.

"We're thrilled to have won today's gold medal. With only three years of preparation since the Tokyo Games, we've made significant progress," said Sun Yingsha, who claimed two gold medals and one silver in Paris.

In the men's 10-meter platform diving final, defending champion Cao Yuan clinched gold, helping China achieve its clean sweep of all eight diving titles at the Games. This marked Cao's fourth Olympic appearance, earning him a career total of four gold medals, one silver and one bronze from London 2012 to Paris 2024.

Since the Chinese diving team debuted at the Los Angeles Games in 1984, it has consistently won gold medals, but achieved a clean sweep for the first time in Paris.

Also on Saturday, twins Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi clinched gold in the duet event of artistic swimming with a total score of 566.4783, marking China's first Olympic victory in a discipline that demands grace, poise, incredible lung power and flawless acrobatic skills.

Earlier, the sisters also contributed to China's gold medal in the artistic swimming team event.

The boxing events ended on Saturday, with China winning three gold medals and two silver medals in the 13 weight divisions.

In the women's 75kg boxing final at Roland Garros, Li Qian of China secured gold. She had won bronze in this weight class at Rio 2016 and silver at Tokyo 2020.

In men's weightlifting, Liu Huanhua won gold in the 102kg category in his Olympic debut, marking China's first gold in the men's heavyweight division.

In rhythmic gymnastics on Saturday, the Chinese team secured gold in the group all-around final with a total score of 69.80, giving China its first Olympic gold medal in the sport.