When Xu Haifeng won China’s first-ever gold medal in the Men’s Shooting event at the 1984 Olympic Summer Games, China barely registered on the world athletic map. But today, with the more recent international successes of athletes like Yao Ming, Li Na and Liu Xiang, and the promise of another strong medal count at this summer’s Olympic Games – China can now be considered a bona fide international sports powerhouse. Here is a quick guide to some of the most notable and successful athletes in the history of Chinese sports.

Deng Yaping 邓亚萍
Deng started playing table tennis at the age of five and four years later she had already won the provincial junior – no one has topped her since. Between 1989 and 1997 she won six World Championships and four Olympic Gold medals and by the time she retired at 24,she had more titles than any other player in any other sport.

Rather than resting on her laurels after retiring she enrolled in Tsinghua University, majored in English, and went on to study at Cambridge University. Deng acted as a spokeswoman for the Paralympics and as Deputy Director of the Olympic Village Department for the organizing group in the 2008 Olympics.

Ding Junhui丁俊晖
Ding Jinghui rose to fame in 2002 at the age of 15 when he became the youngest player ever to win the Asian Under-21 Snooker Championship and has gone on to become the most successful player in the history of the sport. He turned professional in 2003 but his biggest breakthrough happened in the 2005 China Open where he defeated the then indomitable Stephen Hendry… before he was even 20. By the time he was 24 Ding was estimated to have pocketed about RMB 6.9 million and brought about a dramatic rise in the popularity of snooker in China in recent years.

Guo Jingjing 郭晶晶
This Hebei-born started diving when she was six and entered her first competition a year later in 1988. She competed in her first Olympics at the tender age of 15, and went on to compete in three more Olympics, winning more medals than any other female diver in history before retiring in 2011.

Throughout her career, her success and natural beauty made her a regular in the gossip columns and such popularity led to lucrative endorsement contracts with McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Toshiba and Li-Ning, leading to her expulsion from the national team for excessive commercial activities at one point (she was eventually allowed back on the team after promising to pay more attention to diving and less to the paparazzi).

Li Na 李娜
Li Na was born in 1982 and was influenced by her father, a professional badminton player, to follow in his footsteps, but was later convinced by her coach to change to tennis – a decision that would change her life forever. In 1997 she joined China’s National Tennis Team and turned pro two years later.

Li was the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam Title final at the 2011 Australian Open and a also became the first to ever win a Grand Slam in singles at the 2011 French Open – the pinnacle of her career so far. Last year Li was ranked seventh in the world and is on her way to become the world’s second highest earning female.

Li Ning 李宁
The “Prince of Gymnastics” was selected to the national team in 1980 and won six medals in the 1984 Olympic Games, including three gold medals. By the time he retired in 1988 Li had 14 titles under his belt and he also had the honor of lighting the Olympic flame at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Nowadays Li Ning is best known for his eponymous sportswear company, founded in 1990, which has pursued endorsement contracts with both domestic and foreign athletes (including Shaquille O’Neal).

Lin Dan 林丹
Born in Fujian “Super Dan” chose to play badminton at the age of five and made it into China’s National team when he was 18.Only 10 years later he had completed the “Super Grand Slam” – the first and only player far to achieve such a feat to date. Lin has signed ten endorsement deals to date, including lucrative contracts with Gillete and Red Bull, and in 2010 alone earned a handsome sum of RMB 12 million.

Liu Xiang 刘翔
This Shanghai-born athlete has been running to victory ever since he was 15. Liu shot to fame after winning the Olympic gold for the Men’s 110m hurdles in 2004 in Athens – the first ever for an Asian male athlete – and is also the first Chinese to have a “triple crown” by being a World Record Holder (set in 2006), a World Champion (in 2007) and an Olympic Champion.

In the run-up to the 2008 Olympics Liu’s face was plastered across just about every billboard in China and earned upwards of USD 10.2 million dollars in endorsement deals in 2007. Although his career suffered a setback when an injury forced him to withdraw from competition in the 2008 Olympics, he is still estimated to have doubled his value in 2010 with more endorsement contracts, including a lucrative deal with Visa.

Wang Meng 王濛
Wang Meng is one of the fastest speed skaters in the world, especially when it comes to short distances. Born in 1985 she first set foot on the ice at the age of nine and was later crowned Overall World Champion in her field in 2008 and 2009. Wang is also the most decorated Chinese Winter Olympic athlete, having won four golds, a silver and a bronze medal and has two world records under her belt.

Wang got herself in hot water last June after getting into a brawl with her team manager after a night of drinking and was subsequently expelled from the National Team and from all national and international competitions – despite being reinstated after a public apology this debacle is said to have cost her around RMB 10.4 million in earnings for the year.

Xu Haifeng 许海峰
Despite having no professional training whatsoever, Xu Haifeng has the distinction of being China’s first-ever Olympic Gold medalist for his victory in the Men’s 50m Air Pistol event in the 1984 Olympics. In 1982 he joined the Ahui provincial shooting team and two years later got a spot on the national team before winning the gold medal.

Although he didn’t go on to win any more Olympic medals, Xu was honored twice by being a torchbearer at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and in the 1990 Asian Games. Since retiring in 1994 Xu has turned to coaching and was chosen to be the coach of the 1994 and 2001 National Shooting Team.

Yao Ming 姚明
Born in Shanghai in 1980 Yao Ming started playing for the Shanghai Sharks as a teenager,was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first pick for the 2002 NBA Draft and went on to play in multiple NBA All-Star games and was named to the All-NBA Team five times before retiring last year due to a chronic foot injury.

Yao’s NBA success has made paid off for his pocketbook as well – his endorsement deals include Reebok, China Unicom, Visa and McDonald’s and his total fortune was estimated at around USD 34 million in 2011.