Ace Gymnast Primed

As the first man to successfully defend the all-around title at World Gymnastics Championships since 1926, three-time Olympian Yang Wei is a gold hopeful in almost all gymnastic events.

Yang, 28, missed gold in Athens by losing his grip on the horizontal bar in the finals and is keen to reverse his fortunes. His chances of gold in Beijing received a major boost with the news that his major rival, U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm (all-around gymnastic winner of the Athens Olympics), announced his withdrawal from the Games due to a hand injury on July 28.

A gymnast since the age of 5, Yang is already a veteran with a dozen Olympic medals, but this August is likely to be his last chance to compete for this world-top gymnastic individual crown.

"To compete on home turf, you surely have great pressure, and I think I can turn the pressure into motivation," Yang told Xinhua News Agency.

‘Iron Hammer' Leads U.S. Volleyball Assault

Nicknamed "Iron Hammer" by her fans for her powerful spikes, Jenny Lang Ping, the Beijing-born former Chinese volleyball star and now head coach of the U.S. women's volleyball team, hopes her popularity in China would help her side enjoy a home advantage, except in the showdown with the host team. The Chinese and U.S. teams will compete in the group stage on August 15.

Lang, 50, is the pride of China's sports achievement in the 1980s when she inspired the national team grab four straight wins in five years, including gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, a World Championship in 1982 and World Cup titles in 1981 and 1985. She retired as a player in 1986.

After graduating from the New Mexico State University in 1991 with a MA in Sport Management, Lang launched her coaching career and returned to lead the Chinese women's volleyball team in 1995. One year later, she sent the team to the podium with silver medal at the Atlanta Olympics. Due to health reasons, Lang resigned in 2000. In 2002, she was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame.

Since Lang took over the U.S. team in 2005, she has managed to steer them to a fourth place world ranking. During the 2008 World Grand Prix tournament in Japan, Lang led her team to beat China 3-2 in a titanic five-setter.

Uniform Designer in Fashion

Before being selected as the chief clothing designer for the Beijing Olympic Games, the 45-year-old He Yang was an associate professor at the Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology. Now with more than 130,000 people wearing her designs during the Games, she is a fashion mainstay.

He, along with her team, successfully bid for the 2008 Olympic outfits design in late 2005. At the same time, she was also assigned to design the uniforms for torchbearers.

According to He, the elements of the uniforms needed to include "auspicious clouds," the Chinese style logo graphics required by the Beijing Olympic organizers. "It took us almost three months to understand the graphic pattern," she told Xinhua News Agency, adding that the uniform embodies the spirit of sports and fashion.