China's Lyu Xiaojun celebrates after winning the men's 81kg weightlifting competition during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Tokyo International Forum in Tokyo on July 31, 2021. (LUIS ACOSTA / AFP)

Chinese athletes are embracing the social media age to connect with their fans like never before as the public's appetite for glimpses into their heroes' personalities continues to grow.

The use of social media has opened up a window for athletes and their sports to break out of the athletic sphere and be appreciated and celebrated by a wider audience.

Zhang Qing, founder of sports marketing consultancy Key-Solution

With TV thoroughly covering their athletic feats at the Tokyo Olympics, social media platforms offer China's stars the chance to showcase their daily lives, training routines and behind-the-scenes experiences at the Games.

Yang Qian has been one of the biggest hits online. After firing China to the first gold of the Games by winning the women's 10m air rifle on July 24, the student athlete savored the finest moment of her young career by forming the shape of a heart with her arms on the podium.

The impromptu pose－enhanced by Yang's vivacious, smiling eyes behind her face mask－has since racked up millions of likes online.

Yang's new-found popularity, highlighted by over 2 million new Weibo followers during the Games, even turned the yellow duck hairpin she wore during the final and her pearl nail polish into hot commodities on online shopping platforms.

Yang, a 21-year-old junior student at the prestigious Tsinghua University, revealed that, away from the shooting range, she is a regular college student who likes fashion accessories and cosmetics just as much as any girl her age.

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Her regular Weibo posts on the food she eats, the places she visits and celebrities she admires all trigger plenty of interest and reaction from her ever-increasing legion of followers.

Compared to their media-shy predecessors, who were products of an altogether less-ostentatious era, China's young athletes these days tend to enjoy the spotlight, and have no problem with revealing their often diverse and colorful personalities online, according to communication and marketing experts.

"China's State-run sports system used to be pretty closed and isolated with limited access for the outside world, especially for events with relatively low participation rates," said Zhang Qing, founder of Beijing-based sports marketing consultancy Key-Solution.

Chinese volleyball players Zhang Changning and Liu Xiao-tong strike a pose for the cameras in Tokyo on Aug 2, 2021. (PHOTO / AFP)

"The use of social media has opened up a window for athletes and their sports to break out of the athletic sphere and be appreciated and celebrated by a wider audience," added Zhang, referring to the unprecedented attention niche sports such as shooting and weightlifting have enjoyed during Tokyo 2020.

Often viewed as hardworking yet inarticulate in the past, China's gold-sweeping weightlifters in Tokyo have shattered stereotypes around their sport by revealing the lighthearted side of their lives to an intrigued public.

In response to her curious fans, women's +87kg gold medalist Li Wenwen last week posted a video on Weibo showing that she had removed from her room the infamous cardboard bed offered to athletes at the Olympic Village, and replaced it with a Japanese tatami-style mat to sleep on.

"Don't worry guys, I won't challenge the paper bed with my weight class as hard as some other athletes did. We (Li and the bed) are both safe," she said in the video.

Li's men's counterpart Lyu Xiaojun, who won the 81kg as the world's oldest Olympic champion in the category at 37, has also seen his popularity soar after a series of videos on his warm-up squat routine went viral on YouTube.

In one of the instructional videos, Lyu clamps a piece of paper in between his bulging back muscles and encourages viewers to challenge themselves with the workout. His Instagram account－"luxiaojunbarbell"－has attracted over 250,000 new followers in the space of a week during his stay in Tokyo.

"I enjoy weightlifting to challenge myself, and the feeling of vying with much younger opponents in the ring," said Lyu, who hoisted his coach into the air to celebrate his gold-medal triumph on Sunday.

"People all over the world call me 'Jun, the God,' and I want to say to them that 'you are right'."

With the Games taking place under strict COVID-19 restrictions, athletes' social media posts about the Olympic Village－often the subject of intrigue and gossip at past Games－are proving hugely popular on social media, especially considering the world's media have limited access to the facilities.

China's Yang Liu competes in the artistic gymnastics men's rings final of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo on Aug 2, 2021. (LOIC VENANCE / AFP)

Through their own posts, the world's mightiest sportsmen and women have presented their goofy, bizarre and refreshingly normal selves without the varnish of scripted and edited television packages, helping fans relate to them.

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In the wake of the retirements of a number of high-profile sports legends, including basketball icon Yao Ming, tennis Grand Slam champion Li Na and badminton great Lin Dan, China craves a new generation of sporting superstars.

Social media could help satisfy that demand, said Hong Jianping, a sports communication researcher at Beijing Sport University.

"The instant nature of social media has made it possible to generate stars by elevating their profiles overnight," Hong said.

"However, everything has to be built on a solid foundation－and that is their athletic performance.

"Fame on social media can come and go very quickly. The funny and fascinating tidbits can only add to their sporting achievements, otherwise the attention won't last long."