Swimmer Sun Yang awarded 4 national games golds without breaking a sweat

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Swimmer Sun Yang awarded 4 national games golds without breaking a sweat

(Xinhua) 15:13, August 30, 2013

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Laurels can be rested on as Olympic champion swimmer Sun Yang has won four gold medals from the Chinese National Games without taking a dip.

Sports are not equal in the country's most premier sporting event as the women's volleyball winner has swept three gold medals while the rugby champion will have to settle for one gold.

The weirdest medal counting system is being used in the 12th Chinese National Games, which awards two golds to the winner of each Olympic gold in London and three golds to the respective winner here of soccer, volleyball and basketball, known as "three big balls" in China.

The losing team in any of "three big balls" finals won't pick up silver medal. They will get two gold medals instead, while the third-placed team has one.

Where will silver and bronze medals go?

The fifth-placed team will be awarded three silvers and the ninth finisher will go home with a bronze.

The Tianjin women's volleyball team, the defending champion, was the early beneficiary of the system as it beat host Liaoning 3-1 on July 20 to sweep three gold medals.

The medal counting system for the Liaoning games, which will officially open on Saturday, was set by the State Administration of Sport in 2010 to encourage "the development of three big ball games and Olympic sports".

Chinese web users are sarcastic about the counting method.

"That's ridiculous," said a poster on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter. "It needs a mathematician to count medal tally."

"That's really funny," said another poster. "Silver medalist is not second-place finisher, while bronze medalist might be ninth."

Sun Yang, the winner of two Olympic gold medals in London Olympics who represents southeast China's Zhejiang Province, might wrap up 11 gold medals from the national games.

With four golds under his belt, he is expected to compete in the men's 100m, 200m, 400m and 1,500m freestyle events and three team events.