A large number of postgraduates have taken part in the Beijing Olympic Games – Zhang Xiangxiang, Yang Wei (combined gymnastics gold winner), fellow gymnasts Sun Dan and Zhang Shuo, badminton player Gao Ling, tennis player Li Na, and fencer Dong Guotao – these highly-educated athletes have also displayed superior sports skills during the Beijing Olympics.

Yang Wei

28-year-old Yang Wei showed his unquestionable gymnastic talent at the Beijing Olympics. He has many consummate skills and his special expertise lies in men's floor exercise and rings. Yang won two gold medals, one in the team event and the other in the individual combined. He is truly the "combined king".

Chen Yanqing is the deputy director of Suzhou Sport Bureau. Zhang Xiangxiang gained his Master's Degree in sports and training. He uses what he has learnt to train himself in a scientific way, thereby avoiding injury and achieving peak performance.

Most of the Chinese Olympic team members with higher education choose subjects like business management, sports, foreign languages, media, laws, Chinese and psychology. But no matter what major they choose, as Yang Wei said, the time they have available for their University studies is limited by the demands of their training.

Chen Yanqing

Socializing with their fellow students on campus provides them with a different type of success. Thanks to their education, people like Yang Wei, Zhang Xiangxiang, and Gao Lin have also developed as individuals. They are refined in manner and civilized in speech. Speaking with Chen Yanqing, it is difficult to connect this articulate woman with her old image of a weightlifter who struggled to express herself.