China’s women’s volleyball team wearing masks during matches, sparking heated debate.

The Chinese women’s volleyball team wore N95 masks during their group match against Iran at the 2022 Asian Cup on Aug 25, sparking international public opinion and a storm of public opinion in China.

Many Chinese Internet users expressed their anger at what they saw as a “zero zero policy” to sacrifice players’ health. Some netizens even accused the athletes of being humiliated abroad as a result of China’s extreme quarantine measures.

In the match, the Chinese women’s volleyball players wearing masks lost the first set to the Iranian team. In the second set, the Chinese players took off their masks and beat their opponents in straight sets to reach the last eight as group winners.

The Chinese women’s volleyball team has always been one of the strongest teams in the world and has won the world championship many times. In 2022, the Chinese women’s volleyball team ranked fourth in the world, behind the United States, Brazil and Italy. The Iranian women’s volleyball team is not ranked among the top 20 in the world.

The match, which was supposed to be a no-brainer, became the focus of media attention when the Chinese women’s volleyball players played in masks.

With the spread of COVID-19 vaccine, many countries including the DPRK have relaxed their control on the epidemic, but China still implements strict prevention and control policies and “faces the novel coronavirus like a formidable enemy”.
The Chinese Volleyball Association said it sincerely apologized for the trouble caused by the lack of detail in its work.

The letter also explained that before the competition, the Chinese women’s volleyball players “learned that some athletes in the team have been infected” and “some of our athletes also have symptoms.” In order to prevent the risk of the spread of the epidemic, the team asked athletes to wear masks when entering the competition venues to protect their health.

“Since the organizing committee did not make a clear regulation on whether athletes should wear masks in the competition, we athletes wore masks after the competition to protect ourselves. Due to our lack of experience, we did not remind the athletes to remove masks in time.”

“In the second half of the first round, when we realized that wearing masks was not good for the health of the players, the team reminded us in time, and we athletes took off the masks and finished the rest of the game.”

Netizens expressed more criticism of the Chinese Volleyball Association’s apology, saying that such an apology letter is suspected of shirking responsibility.

The apology letter does not specify who made the decision to require athletes to wear masks when entering stadiums, but it does remove responsibility from the individual because the purpose was to “prevent the spread of the virus” and “protect the health of athletes.”

Wearing a mask in the competition is “athletes to protect themselves”, “the organizing committee did not make clear regulations”.

As for the volleyball association itself, “we didn’t have enough experience in the field and didn’t remind them in time.” Only in the middle of the first round did they realize that wearing a mask was bad for their health.

Netizens criticized the Chinese volleyball Association for such an apology is unreasonable, kicking the ball, strange. Some netizens mocked the Chinese Volleyball Association for being politically savvy on the issue, but at the expense of professional common sense.

Some commentators believe that such strong criticism of the women’s volleyball team wearing masks on the Internet actually reflects the Chinese public’s deep dissatisfaction with the current epidemic prevention policy.

A precedent for masks during the COVID-19 pandemic
Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely hindered the smooth running of international sports competitions.

The most notable is the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for the summer of 2020. The pandemic delayed the world’s biggest sporting event for a full year, with many stadiums empty of spectators.

In addition, the Winter Olympics held in Beijing earlier this year also attracted a lot of criticism and dissatisfaction due to the strict coronavirus control measures.

But this is not the first time athletes have worn masks at sporting events.

Earlier this year, during an ice hockey game between the Canadian and Russian Olympic committees, both sides wore masks after players on both sides were concerned about Novel coronavirus testing results.

Players from both sides later removed their masks after learning the results were negative.

It is an irrefutable objective fact that athletes who engage in strenuous sports are required to wear masks, which is a wrong and potentially fatal rule. This is wrong whether it happens to China, America, or the moon. The wrong thing will not become right because more people do it, nor will it become right because the country’s economy is more developed.

When it is impossible to refute obvious mistakes, it is worse to use foreign countries to do the same. Its fundamental goal is to reject criticism and refuse to correct mistakes.

Wrong rules should be criticized and corrected, no matter where it happened or who made them. It has nothing to do with love or patriotism. It is disgraceful to try to escape criticism of the wrong rules with patriotism.

We saw in 2022 that the Chinese women’s volleyball team was required to wear masks and then criticized this ridiculous rule. But they asked, why didn’t you criticize the 2021 U.S. women’s volleyball team when they wore masks? You didn’t criticize the US women’s volleyball team for wearing masks at that time. Now you have no right to criticize the Chinese women’s volleyball team for wearing masks. Otherwise, it will be a double standard.