Chinese Champions Program: Meet the athletes

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural cohort, a second group of elite Chinese student-athletes will arrive at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Thursday, March 31, as part of the Chinese Champions Program.

The 16 athletes (including one coach) will stay in Madison until mid-December as part of a unique exchange with Beijing Sport University (BSU), the foremost sports, physical education and exercise science institution in China.

During the spring, summer and fall at UW–Madison, the group will participate in three sessions of a nondegree academic program. The curriculum includes instruction in English as a Second Language and kinesiology, as well as internships focusing on training, coaching and events management. They will also participate in tours and other community activities.

This year’s student-athletes:

• Zhang Yining is considered one of top female table tennis players in history. She held the International Table Tennis Federation’s (ITTF) No. 1 ranking in both women’s singles and women’s doubles for more than five years. At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, she won gold medals in both the women’s singles and women’s team events. She also won two gold medals in 2004, in women’s singles and women’s doubles. For her dominant presence on the world stage, Zhang took the Olympic Oath on behalf of all athletes at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.
• Gong Ruina is one of China’s all-time greatest women’s badminton players. At the IBF World Championships, playing singles, she won gold in 1998 and 2001, silver in 2003 and bronze in 1999. Her numerous international titles include the 2003 Denmark Open, 2004 Swedish Open and 2004 British Open, with many silver medals. She also played on China’s world champion teams of 2002 and 2004.
• Han Xiaopeng, one of the most accomplished winter sport athletes in China, won a gold medal in the men’s aerial freestyle skiing event at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. In doing so, he became the first male Chinese athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. He successfully defended his title in 2010, winning gold at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. In 2007, he won his event at both the 2007 World Championships and Asian Winter Games.
• Tang Jingzhi broke a world record as a member of China’s gold-medal 4x200m freestyle relay team at the 2002 Moscow Swim Championships. In 2003, she won gold in the 800m freestyle at the World Championships. At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, she won a silver medal as a member of the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team. She also won gold as part of the 4x200m freestyle relay team at the 2002 Pusan Asian Games.
• Qiu Hongxia is a weightlifter whose most celebrated accomplishment came at the 2006 World Weightlifting Championships. Competing in the women’s lightweight (53kg) events, she won all three styles of weightlifting and set two world records in her class (both clean and jerk and total weight). In the subsequent years, she has won multiple national and international titles.
• Zhou Yan, Liu Yin and Xue Qinshuang are members of the Chinese national women’s curling team, skipped by Wang Bingyu (who came to UW–Madison in the first cohort of athletes). Currently, Zhou plays lead, Liu plays third and Xue plays second. The team won the bronze medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, China’s first ever Olympic medal in curling, after losing to eventual gold medalists Sweden in the semifinals. The team has won a World Championship (2009), a world silver medal (2008) and three Pacific Championships (2006-08). Zhou and Xue curled in their first tournament (2002 Pacific Curling Championships) after curling for only two years; Liu, with the same experience, was an alternate.
• He Lumin won the gold medal in 1998 at the 13th Asian Taekwondo Championships — the first Chinese person to hold the title. From 1999-2001, she won three World Women’s Taekwondo Championships in a row in the welterweight (67kg) event, becoming an idol for women in taekwondo.
• Wang Shuo was a taekwondo jin. In 1999, at the age of 15, she won a gold medal at the seventh World Women’s Taekwondo Championships in the 55kg event.
• Zhou Yafei won a bronze medal as a member of the women’s 4×100 medley relay team at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, swimming the butterfly leg. The team set an Asian record. At the 2003 World Championships, she was a member of the first-place 4×100 medley and third-place 4×200 freestyle relay teams and took the bronze in the 200-meter individual medley. She was also a member of the fourth-place 4×100 medley relay team at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.
• Shi Xin is a synchronized swimmer. She won a silver medal in the solo event at the 2010 FINA Synchronized Swimming World Cup, the first for China in that event.
• Zhong Hongyan is one of China’s most accomplished female kayakers/sprint canoers. From 1998-2008, she won five gold and four silver medals in international competition, including a silver in 2002 (four-person kayak, 1000m) and a bronze in 2006 (solo kayak, 500m) at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships. At the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, she placed fourth in the two-person kayak, 500m event.
• Liu Xia competed in judo, primarily at the half-heavyweight (78 kg) weight. She won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, matching her finish that year at the Asian Judo Championships. In 2007, she won the gold at the Asian Judo Championships.
• Wang Lihong was a pitcher on the Chinese national softball team. She won a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics — the first in which softball was recognized as a medal sport — playing seven matches. At the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics, she finished fourth, playing in three matches.
• Wrestling coach Chen Delong will also participate in the program. Chen competed in men’s freestyle wrestling in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

For more information on UW–Madison’s efforts in China, visit http://www.chancellor.wisc.edu/china/.