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choeyang Kyi

Choeyang Kyi, the Tibetan athlete who won a Silver medal in the 2012 London Olympic games, this year again represented China in the Rio Olympics 2016 where she achieved fifth place in the Women’s 20Km Walk with a time of 1:29:04. She had hoped to repeat her success in London but the silver medal this year went to María Guadalupe González from Mexico, while China’s Lui Hong and LüXiuzhi won Gold and Bronze respectively.

Choeyang Kyi, who was the first Tibetan woman to take part and win a medal in the Olympics, was born in Tsochang, Amdoin eastern Tibet. She won the bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympic Games in race walking but was later announced as the silver medalist when the Russian athlete Olga Kaniskina, who won the silver medal in the race, was disqualified following a failed drug test.

Another Tibetan athlete named Topgyal, 22, a distance runner, participated in the Men’s Marathon final in Rio, his first time participating in the Olympic Games. According to freetibet.org Topgyal was trained at the Tibet Sport Academy from the age of 15 and later went for training in Africa. He has participated in the Asian Games, Asian Championships, Beijing Track and Field World Championships, and the IAAF Diamond League. His coach and mentor, Mr Kelsang Tsering, attributes Topgyal’s well-being to his special Tibetan diet. “No matter where my athletes go, I will always bring plateau yak meat for them to eat, as well as tsampa and butter tea. After I feed them some boiled yak meat, their faces quickly recover”, Kelsang Tsering told Free Tibet.

Topgyal

Although Choeyang Kyi and Topgyal are both from Tibet, they represent China at the Olympics and had they won any medals these would have been considered wins for China. Tibetans are reportedly ineligible to join the newly-created Refugees team, which competed for the first time in Rio with ten refugees from countries which included Syria, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio came to an end on August 21 and the Olympic flag was handed over to the 2020 Olympic host Tokyo, Japan. The United States of America collected the maximum number of medals this year, including 46 gold medals, followed by Great Britain and People’s Republic of China with 27 and 26 gold medals respectively.