Defeating her Russian competitor with the last shot. Yang Qian, 21, won the first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday in the women’s 10-meter air rifle.

The junior student from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, who is studying at the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, became an immediate hit at home thanks to the calmness and confidence she has displayed.

It was Yang that drew the nation’s attention to the Games, which have been delayed from last year due to the COVID-19. Although wearing a mask, her smiling eyes and the gesture she made on the podium, forming the shape of a heart with her arms, have touched audiences around the world.

For too long, the world has longed for such a moment when countries can come together. The openness, courage and self-control Yang showed during and after the event have proved to be a common language.

With her baby face and fashionable appearance, and her enthusiasm for her sport, Yang has shown young people that the Olympic Games is not only an opportunity to win honor for the nation, but also a personal stage for the athletes to enjoy themselves, show their skills, display their personal charm, and actively interact with audiences.

Compared with the predecessors, the young Chinese athletes are more likely to enjoy the moment with smiles instead of tears. And while most Chinese Olympic gold winners of the last generation regarded winning as a reward for their countless hours of practice, the young athletes tend to view winning as a new beginning rather than the end of their sporting journey.

Competing for the country and enjoying it for oneself in the Games will attract more young people to enjoy sports, and doing so can also bring more honor to the motherland.

Children born in 2020 will experience extreme climate events at a rate that is two to seven times higher than people born in 1960, according to a new study in the journal Science.

With the current rate of global warming and national policies that fail to make necessary cuts in pollution, climate events such as heat waves will continue to rise, scientists say. That leaves children of younger generations facing “a severe threat” to their safety, according to the study’s authors.

The study researched extreme climate events such as heat waves, droughts, crop failures, floods, and wildfires. Researchers used recent data from a 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that included information on global life expectancy(寿命), population trends and possible changes of global temperatures.

The forecasts for how these events could completely affect younger generations were rather surprising. The scientists compared a person born in 1960 with a child who was 6 years old in 2020. The 6-year-old will experience twice as many typhoons and wildfires, three times as many river floods, four times as many crop failures and five times as many droughts. Heat waves, though, will be the most extreme climate event, with 36 times as many occurring for the 6-year-old.

The study also shows that extreme weather events could affect younger generations in various places of the world differently. People who were younger than 25 years old by 2020 in the Middle East and North Africa will likely experience more exposure(暴露) to extreme climate events compared with other places. The researchers say overall, younger generations in lower-income countries will experience the worsening climate at a higher rate than those in wealthier countries.

The data from the study shows how limiting the increase in global warming and adapting the Paris climate accord(协议) are beneficial, the researchers argue. But even then, younger generations are still left with “extreme event exposure that never happen before,” they write.