In 1984, the PRC defied a Soviet boycott to attend its first Olympics in 32 years
In the heat of the California sun, crowds began to gather around Xu Haifeng (许海峰) as he prepared to take his final few shots in the Olympic 50-meter pistol event. After a deep breath, he fired his trusty gun, and waited for the judges to count the scores.
Just two years before the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Xu had been working as a fertilizer salesman in Anhui province. But that summer day, he found himself on top of the podium with a gold medal around his neck—the first PRC athlete to see the the country’s flag raised and hear its national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” played in an Olympic stadium.
Xu was the first Olympic champion of the 1984 Games, as well as the first representative from China ever to win gold, in what was the PRC’s first appearance at the summer Olympics since 1952. With Xu’s “shots heard around the world” he wrote himself into Olympic lore, and millions of school textbooks. “When I got back [to China] with a gold, I realized how significant it would be, it changed my life ever after,” Xu told Reuters in 2008.
Related Articles
