(TibetanReview.net, Sep07, 2017) – Two Tibetans, both Olympians, have won medals in track and field events on Sep 5 at the 13th National games of the People’s Republic of China being held in Tianjin, a port metropolis in northeast of the country.
Tobgey from Lhasa has won the gold medal in 10,000m race. He clocked 28.26 minutes, which is two minutes behind the current world record. Choeyang Kyi, the first Tibetan to have won an Olympic medal, won silver in the 20-km women’s race walk. She is from Tsojhang (Chinese: Haibei) Prefecture of Qinghai Province.
Tobgey, 23, of Tagtse (Dazi) County in Lhasa City, had represented the PRC in the 2016 Rio Olympics. His coach is a Tibetan man named Kelsang Tsering who says Tobgey’s staple diet is fully Tibetan and includes yak meat, Tsampa (roasted barley flour) and butter tea.
Choeyang Kyi (Qieyang Shenjie to China), 27, had won an Olympic bronze medal in the women’s 20-km race walk in London in 2012, becoming the first Tibetan to achieve that distinction. She was later announced as the silver medalist after the Russian athlete Olga Kaniskina, who had won it, was disqualified after she failed a drug test.
Choeyang Kyi came fifth in the Rio Olympics last year.
The first Tibetan to have taken part in an Olympic event was an archer named Durje Choeying. According to Chinese news website www.zxxw.com, he took part in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.