Rio 2016 Olympics: Chinese acrobatic team horrifies spectators with use of member as human jump rope

American gymnast Simone Bile flew, twisted, turned and tumbled all around the floor, beam and bars in the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympics that she ended up the most decorated female gymnast of the summer games. In contrast, Chinese gymnasts did not perform as expected, but the country’s acrobatic team both wowed and horrified spectators on Wednesday at the gymnastics gala.

The act that caught everybody’s attention was the use of a member of the team as a human jump rope, reports Mashable. The male gymnast was thrown a few times, while another member jumped, until the team mates released him into the air “in a death tumble.” To the audience’s relief, the other team members caught him.

On Wednesday morning, Xinhua News Agency tweeted that 2016 is the "worst Olympic flop" because of the poorest Summer Games showing of its athletes. The official news agency cites a succession of disappointments in badminton, diving and gymnastics.

According to the latest medal tally, the US leads in the gold medal haul with 28, followed by Great Britain at 19 and China is only third with 17. Since 2004, China finished second place in every Olympic event since 2004 and got 51 gold medal in the Beijing 2008 Olympics, reports Reuters.

Xinhua included in its tweet a photo of Chinese gymnast You Hao who fell on the ground during the men’s parallel bars final on Tuesday night.

To increase its chances of collecting more gold medals, China sent 417 athletes to Rio de Janeiro whom it hope would bring back home at least 36 gold medals. But so far, they are 19 short.

Deng Shudi, a male gymnast, explains his poor performance to pressure, causing him to finish fourth in the men’s parallel bars. He says he could not go to sleep until 2 or 3 am, causing an empty brain when he competed.

VIDEO: Human jump rope in Rio Olympic 2016

Source: Europe world12456