Social media slammed Olympic figure skater who gave up her US citizenship to compete for China after finishing last

Olympic figure skater Beverly Zhu, who later changed her name to Zu Yi, after she renounced her American citizenship in 2018, was selected to compete for China but failed to deliver on the ice on Sunday. 

During a free skate team competition, she fell twice and received the lowest score, dropping the team to fifth place. Users on Weibo, China’s most popular social media platform, did not spare her feelings despite the fact that she left the rink in tears.

“Zhu Yi, how ridiculous your performance is!” another user said. “How dare you skate for China? You cannot even hold a candle to an amateur!”

“This is such a disgrace,” another comment said with 11,000 upvotes.

“Zhu Yi has fallen” trended on the Twitter-like platform with more than 200 million views, CNN reported. 

The Western Journal reported the hashtag was deleted and later disappeared. 

“Upset and a little embarrassed,” said the distressed Yi after leaving the race. 

“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 said, according to the Western Journal. 

It caused more hate when Yi was selected to compete over athletes born in the U.S., but several Twitter users defended the young Olympic skater.

“The hate and abuse #ZhuYi is getting makes me sick. Keep your head high & come back stronger,” another user wrote.  

“The internet is such a cruel place and my heart breaks for Zhu Yi. She fought like hell for that skate and saw it through,” one user tweeted.

China had won two Olympic gold in figure skating as of Monday morning.