Ms Deng Yaping, born in 1973, PhD in Land Economy from Cambridge University, presently Vice-Secretary of the Beijing Committee of the Communist Youth League.

She began to play table tennis when she was five, under the instruction of her father, a table tennis coach. She was twice rejected by professional teams due to her being short in stature, but due to her perseverance and hard work, she finally proved herself to everyone through her successes. At the age of 15 she won her first world championship. After that, she won a total of 4 Gold Medals in the Singles and Doubles events at the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games. She won altogether 18 world championship titles, and is the only woman table tennis player who was ranked Number 1 in the world for 8 consecutive years. She was named China’s most outstanding woman athlete of the 20th century.

During her life she has taken on many different roles: From 1997 up to now she has been a member of the Athletes Commission of the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”). Since 2000, she has been a member of the Sports and Environment Commission of the IOC. In 1999, the International Table Tennis Federation set up a world-wide development plan for promoting the table tennis movement in the name of an individual for the first time—“The Deng Yaping Global Women’s Development Plan”. Meanwhile, as a public-spirited person, she is a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy; she introduced the concept of Sports Charity to China, and together with 5 other world champions, set up the China Laureus Friends and Champions China.

For most of her life, she has been closely connected with the Olympic movement. Besides winning the Gold Medals in the Singles and Doubles events at two Olympic Games, she is the only Chinese athlete who spoke at both bids for the Beijing Olympics in 1993 and 2001. During the seven years of preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she devoted all her energies as a member of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

She is honored as a legendary figure among Chinese athletes. She has used her rich experience in life to prove “No matter what the surroundings, so long as you are determined and exert great efforts, you are sure to succeed.”