Thursday, August 1, 2024, 11:48
The women’s 20-kilometer race in Paris 2024 has left a curious image. The Spanish athlete María Pérez achieved a remarkable feat by securing the silver medal, but she was outpaced by the Chinese athlete Jiayu Yang, who left no chance for the Granadian.
The Chinese racewalker, one of the most celebrated athletes in her country at the age of 28, was the protagonist of a curious image. Yang participated in the event with her navel covered by tape, a custom among Chinese athletes that was also seen at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics.
The gold medalist has become the center of attention for her victory, but also for her invisible navel. The decision to cover it -not all athletes from China do it- is related to a religious matter.
According to Eastern culture, this orifice is one of the entry points for negative energies into the human body, and covering it means avoiding them, both those that one might receive and those that one emanates. This belief arises from the fact that the navel is the first part of the human body created after the conception of the fetus and, therefore, is considered a potential source of negative energies.