'No truth' in fabricated Paris Olympics medal table with China at first place: IOC
- Published on August 27, 2024 at 04:34
- 2 min read
- By AFP Hong Kong
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"Medal table on the official website of the Olympic Committee," read a post on X in simplified Chinese shared on August 13, 2024.
It also published a medal table image that put China at the top with 44 golds -- made up of the medals of the Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese teams -- and edged the US team to second place.
The false claim surfaced after the United States topped the final medal table at the Paris Games with 126 medals with China in second place on 91, although both teams finished locked on 40 golds.
AFP reported this was the Chinese team's best performance at an overseas Olympics, and some fans argued that China was the "number one out of sovereign countries" by including the medals won by Hong Kong and Taiwan (archived link).
Beijing claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control, but the island has maintained a self-ruled status in many ways, including sending its Olympic team under the name "Chinese Taipei" (archived link).
Hong Kong continued to send a separate team to compete in the Olympics after its return to Chinese rule in 1997 (archived link).
The false claim has spread on X, Facebook, Weibo, TikTok, Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili and content aggregators Sohu and NetEase.
However, the IOC has denied the claim that it issued the fabricated list that put China at the top of the tally.
'No truth'
"There is no truth to these claims," a spokesperson for the IOC said in an email on August 23, 2024 and referred AFP to the official medal table published on the IOC website (archived link).
It puts the United States at the top with 40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze medals, followed by China.
The table also lists the Taiwanese and Hong Kong teams at the 35th and 37th places respectively, separate from the Chinese team.
AFP has previously debunked other false claims related to the Chinese teams at the Paris Games here, here and here.
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