China re-jigs Olympic medal tally to place itself first
Sections of the Chinese media have been caught out changing the 2021 Olympics medal tally by placing China at the top of the list, ahead of the USA.
This year's Olympics in Tokyo saw the USA finish first with 39 gold medals with China coming in a close second with 38 gold medals and the host nation, Japan, finished third with 27 golds.
But China Central Television (CCTV), which is a state-controlled broadcaster run by the Chinese Communist Party, has been caught out listing China as having won 42 gold medals and winning the overall medal tally.
This re-jigged tally came to light after it was seen on the Chinese social media platform - Weibo.
From this platform, the graphic appeared all over mainstream social media with people on Twitter seeing the rejigged tally.
Some have said the new tally is because the CCTV found a way to boost their medals by including Taiwan and Hong Kong in their overall tally. But even with these two nations’ medals, this only adds three gold medals to China’s overall tally, so it’s unclear where the 42 gold medals comes from.
Hong Kong earned just one gold medal at the Games, while Taiwan, which competes as 'Chinese Taipei', earned two gold medals.
Image: Getty and Twitter