When the “iron rice bowl” meets the marathon: the Shuihua Zhang incident and the moralization of non-elite sports media spectacle

In 2025, an amateur marathon runner’s application for tiaoxiu (compensatory time-off) to compete in a race sparked a controversy that unfolded across multiple phases on Chinese social media. Drawing on media spectacle theory, this study employs a mixed method combining Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modelling with content analysis and theoretically informed discourse interpretation to examine data from Weibo and Douyin. Findings indicate that interpersonal moral evaluation predominates over institutional critique, with the tension between sportsmanship and professional ethics coming to the fore in public discourse. Gender norms are subtly embedded within these discourses. The case reveals how discursive practices construct a non-elite sports media spectacle, through which broader social tensions in contemporary China are continually reproduced.