Chinese teen diving sensation’s village mobbed by fans hoping to see the star on return from Tokyo

The country’s youngest athlete claimed that she took up diving to help pay for her mother’s medical bills

Fans are flocking to the home village of China’s youngest athlete at the Tokyo Games, 14-year-old diver Quan Hongchan, after she won gold with three perfect 10s for her 10m diving performance last Thursday.

State media reports said that tourists — including fans and internet celebrities — were going to great lengths to track down and visit Quan’s village of Maihe in Zhanjiang, Guangdong, and sharing the experience online.

The Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper reported that the rush to the village had caused traffic chaos, and that some “live-streamers even intend to climb up the trees planted at her house and take a jackfruit as a souvenir”.

The village has now been closed to outsiders, “including [Quan’s] relatives” amid concerns that the unusual traffic could see it become a Covid hotspot, the report said.

Quan’s diving performances alone were impressive, but she cemented her place as a national icon after she revealed that she took up diving so she could “make a lot of money” to help pay for her sick mother’s medical bills.

Speaking in Tokyo after winning gold, she said she was helping to support a low-income family of seven.

Her mother had been hospitalised multiple times after getting into an accident years ago. She said: “I want to make enough money to support her.”

Quan belongs to a farmer’s family in a town in south China’s Guangdong province.

Since her comments, a local hospital in Zhanjiang has offered to provide a full range of medical services for her mother as well as her sick grandfather. The Global Times reported that “three enterprises in Zhanjiang will provide her with a house, tuck shop and bonus to her, according to the Zhanjiang City Federation of Industry and Commerce”.

Quan and her family have also been offered lifetime free passes to several amusement parks, zoos and resorts. A local businessman even offered 200,000 yuan (£22,250) in cash to her father, but was declined.

The diving sensation has also been offered lifetime supplies of her favourite local treat “latiao” — a spicy snack made of wheat flour and chilli.

On China’s Twitter-like social media platform Weibo, a hashtag that translates as “how to view Quan Hongchan’s home becoming an Internet photo hotspot” was viewed more than 25 million times.

However, several users also criticised the “irrational behaviour of the crazy fans” thronging Quan’s home village. One social media user commented: “Although her achievements are worth acknowledging by the whole society, she is, after all, a teenager whose purity and simplicity need to be protected from frantic idolisation.”