Source: CCTV.com

03-09-2008 09:24

The girl in the photograph, taken in the early 1980s, is Gao Min. At the time she was training as a diver at a Sichuan Provincial sports college. Aged just 14, she was living as a virtual recluse at the college. The 14-inch black and white television in her room was her only channel for learning about the outside world. It was from the flickering images she saw on the screen that in the summer of 1984, she first learned about the Olympic Games.

Gao Min said, "I knew nothing about the Olympic Games until China first participated in 1984. I'd been injured that year, falling from the 10-metre springboard. I'd been vomiting blood for 2 months. That summer, I was hesitating about whether I should return to training. I remember sitting on a chair in front of the TV, watching the Olympics and digging my spoon into a watermelon."

In August that year, China sent a delegation of 225 athletes and 50 coaches to the 23rd Summer Olympic Games, held in Los Angeles in the USA. This was China's debut in the Summer Olympics, following the country's re-admittance into the IOC.

On the first day of the Games, Xu Haifeng won the men's free pistol title, becoming China's first ever Olympic gold medallist.

But it was an American competitor, the diver Greg Louganis, who made the biggest impression on the young Gao Min. Gao Min said, "I saw Louganis in the Games, the most renowned diver in the world at the time. I hadn't known diving was so beautiful until then."

 In the following days, gymnast Li Ning won three gold medals in the men's floor exercise, trampoline and hand rings. The Chinese Women's Volleyball Team also won gold, after beating the hosts the United States in the final. China, in its return to the Olympic Games, won 15 gold medals, occupying fourth place on the medals table.

"Girls of the volleyball team, joy in your victory radiated from thousands of households when the news reached home."

And so the Chinese delegation returned home in triumph, to be greeted with applause and flowers. People's Daily devised an eye-catching headline: "Surprise for the world, Ambitious China". The Guangming Daily commented: "Their outstanding performances not only shatter the shame of the blank medals record but also symbolize that China has stood up and is striding forward."

Three years earlier, in 1981, the Chinese Women's Volleyball team had won their first international championship – the Volleyball World Cup. A year later, in Peru, they repeated their victory. So the Olympic gold was their third major international title.

 Their success was widely celebrated. One report read: "Tens of thousands of letters descended on them from across the country, like so many snowflakes. Many of the comments focused not so much on volleyball, but on concepts such as spiritual food, national spirit, ambition, confidence and hope.