On Saturday, Philippine wushu's golden girl Agatha Wong took to Twitter to set the record straight.
In an interview with SPIN Life, the national athlete revealed that she made the post about Filipino pride — which has already garnered 2.6k retweets and 25k likes as of writing — after some people argued it was "only natural" for a Chinese to win in the wushu competitions of the 30th Southeast Asian Games.
Agatha kicked off the country's gold rush by bagging a pair of medals in the women's taijiquan and taolu taijijian events.
She continued, "What they don't know is that I have sacrificed a lot to stay in this sport. Just because my last name is Chinese, it doesn't mean that I would have (automatically) won the games. If my last name was Fernandez (middle name), it would make no difference. I would still give my best to compete against my opponents."
Turns out, more netizens were supportive of Agatha, and that they can understand and relate to the racial discrimination she's facing.
The 21-year-old is no stranger to negativity and faultfinders, which she says are all part of success: "I just had to explain that I am a Filipino — born and raised in the Philippines, by heart and by blood. My first and second language is Filipino. Now I just hope that people will be more informed about my background."
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