US-born ice skater slammed on Chinese social media after falling on first appearance for Team China

A US-born Chinese skater has been viciously trolled on the country’s social media platforms for a lacklustre performance at the Beijing Winter Olympics despite making efforts to give up her US citizenship and compete for her native country.

Nineteen-year-old Beverly Zu, born to Chinese parents in Los Angeles, had decided to give up her American citizenship in 2018 to mark her Olympics debut for Team China. She also changed her name to Zhu Yi.

The figure skater was trolled on Chinese social media for falling during the women’s short programme team event at the Games and for not being fluent in Chinese. During the final event of the free skate on Monday, she fell again, after failing to land her first combination triple flip-triple toe-loop jump on Sunday.

Ms Zhu finished with a score of 47.03, the lowest at the skating event, after she failed to land the jump and fell on the opening combination at the Beijing Capital Indoor Stadium. She failed to perform another jump as well.

Team China fell to fifth place from third after her performance in the team event.

Users also launched a severe attack on the athlete by questioning why she was picked for the event instead of someone born in China.

Ms Zhu had skated to “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones.

“I’m upset and a little embarrassed,” Ms Zhu told the media. “I counted over and over again last night to see how many points I need to collect today to help my team advance.

“I guess I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for ladies’ singles and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do but unfortunately I didn’t,” she added.

“Zhu Yi has fallen” started trending on Weibo, where Ms Zhu was trolled by users