Dear NYT, her name is Dinigeer Yilamujiang

 Dinigeer Yilamujiang, left, at the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb 4, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

At the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Friday, women's cross-country skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region was one of the two young athletes lighting the Olympic Cauldron.

She received a lot of attention from both domestic and Western media outlets. However, certain Western media outlets have obviously missed the point while doing reports on her. Some of them stressed her Uygur ethnicity. France 24, for example, said that China "thrust a young Uygur athlete into the spotlight", while The New York Times said China picked "an athlete with a Uygur name".

It seems that for every move of China, some Western media outlets will always find a way to distort it.

Although there has been no official word on why she was chosen, had the Western media outlets checked the facts, they would have known that Dinigeer, born in 2001, is an excellent skier who has won various championships in races held by the International Ski Federation and is fully deserving the honor of lighting the cauldron.
Also, Dinigeer comes from the part of Xinjiang where skiing as a sport is believed to have originated.

By playing word games about Dinigeer's selection certain Western media outlets are just up to their tricks in trying to politicize the Olympics. While for China sports are sports, for certain Western media outlets and politicians, sports, like human rights, are an opportunity and an excuse to play their dirty tricks.

Quite a few Western media outlets avoided referring to her by name, and used "female Uygur athlete" instead. New York Times even avoided saying she is Uygur in ethnicity and said she had "a Uygur name" instead.

It might be necessary for them to find her name again here. Her name is Dinigeer Yilamujiang, she is a cross-country skier participating in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. She, like any other athlete, deserves to be referred to by name, and to receive fair reviews of her performances in the Olympics.