The first coach of Qin Haiyang, one of the four Chinese swimmers who won the men's 4 x 100m medley relay of swimming at Paris 2024 Olympic Games, was overwhelmed by tears of excitement as she watched the competition's live stream in Shanghai on Monday.
Audience of the live stream, made up by the gold medalists' coaches and relatives, cheered for the athletes' excellent performance with the excitement reaching a high at the point when the team topped the competition ranking.
Zhao Fei, the first coach of Qin Haiyang, burst into tears at the team's success.
"The most exciting part is his rebound. It is fantastic. I think it is just like our lives, which are not always smooth. Today, what I have seen is four heroes who won the honor for our country by winning the gold medal. I am really excited," said Zhao.
The Chinese quartet of Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Sun Jiajun and Pan Zhanle won the men's 4 x100m medley relay final, the second swimming gold of China in the ongoing Paris Olympics.
Coach of Chinese Olympic gold medalist swimmer sheds tears at his success
Consumption continued to heat up during the three-day Qingming Festival holiday from Friday to Sunday, as China's consumer goods trade-in programs have gained traction, and its diversified cultural offerings have stimulated new spending needs. At a car dealership in Wuhan City of central China's Hubei Province, consumers are keen to test drive a new energy vehicle with outstanding battery life as the province has beefed up its support for electric car purchase.
"The maximum subsidy for replacing a used car is 44,000 yuan (about 6,000 U.S. dollars), which is quite attractive to me," said a consumer surnamed Wan. In Shanghai, the Bingang shopping mall started trial operation during the holiday and provides citizens and tourists with a wide range of entertainment experiences by empowering more than a dozen performing arts and entertainment spaces of different sizes with high technology.
"We have introduced more than 20 different types of pan-entertainment experiences. We hope to create a destination for cultural entertainment-induced consumption by gathering different types of entertainment," said Wu Jiuying, marketing manager of the Shanghai Bingang shopping mall.
The Qingming Festival holiday has also given a boost to the domestic box office, with dozens of films released.
As of 21:00 on Sunday, China's total box office revenue for the three-day holiday had surpassed 377 million yuan (approximately 51.5 million U.S. dollars), according to data from online platforms.
The U.S. produced film "A Minecraft Movie", Chinese crime thriller "We Girls", animated blockbuster "Ne Zha 2", crime drama "Mumu" and police action movie "Fox Hunt" are currently ranked as the top five.
April 4 marked this year's Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, a traditional Chinese festival for people to pay tribute to the deceased and to worship their ancestors. Increasing numbers of people nowadays also use the holiday as an occasion to make spring outing and enjoy leisure entertainment.
China sees strong spike in Qingming Festival spending
