Rainbow-haired snowboarder Jenise Spiteri, who made her Olympic debut for Malta in Beijing earlier on Wednesday, captured the public’s attention after she was filmed pulling a dumpling out of her pocket and taking a bite while waiting for her scores.

Born in California of Maltese ancestry, Spiteri is the only athlete representing Malta at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. With 30,000 followers on her Youtube channel, she has been posting regular updates about her Olympic journey.

Speaking to news crews after competing, Spiteri said she had been eating the dumplings for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“They’re my favourite thing to eat at the Olympic village, I’ve been eating six red bean paste buns every day, two for breakfast, two for lunch and two for dinner,” she said.

“This morning I was too nervous to swallow any food so I put them in my backpack. I didn’t realise that I still had one in my pocket when I did the run, so I was like ‘Oh okay! Now I can finally eat’.”

“I love them,” she added. “I think they’re so good.

But her affinity for red bean paste buns endeared Spiteri to Chinese social media users, who shared the footage widely on Chinese social network platform WeChat.

Spiteri in action on the halfpipe at the Winter Olympics. Photo: AFP

WeChat user Xiaoxue Qin who spoke to Times of Malta said that comments about Spiteri are generally positive and that people enjoyed the moment of lightness she brought to the typically serious competitions.

“Right now, everyone in China is keeping up with the Olympics and the video of Jenise Spiteri is being shared a lot,” she said.

“People think she was really cute. These sweet and funny moments are enjoyable when most of the news about the games is so serious.”

“Most people are just offering to send her more buns!”

Spiteri finished 21st out of 22 with a score of 25.25, putting her out of the final. She fell on her first round in the qualifier but managed to complete her second attempt without incident.

Despite the disappointment, Spiteri later took to Twitter to thank her fans for standing behind her.

“I really wanted to show the world the best snowboarding I could do and I’m a little bummed I didn’t put on the show I’m capable of,” she said.

“However, seeing the hundreds of tweets from people congratulating me here really makes me feel special. Thank you all for the support!”