Li Ning

No one knew what to expect when China arrived at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Furious at Taiwan’s inclusion in the Olympic brotherhood, the People’s Republic had, except for a couple of Winter Olympics appearances, boycotted the global gathering for nearly 30 years — and did so again in 1980 to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It had also failed to win a single medal at its last Summer Olympics appearance, in Helsinki in 1952. So when the Chinese team finally turned up in California, it was an entirely unknown quantity. That would soon change, thanks to one of the most remarkable sporting talents the country has produced: Li Ning. Of the tens of thousands of pliable youths forcibly inducted into the Chinese sports system in the 1960s, Li was one of the handful to possess genuine, world-beating talent. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Chinese gymnast went on to capture three golds, two silvers and a bronze in Los Angeles. In doing so he became, more than anyone else, the face of an emergent China shaking off three decades of sporting isolation.

In his 19-year athletic career, Li would garner 106 medals and China’s sporting reputation would only grow more dazzling. But his ability to represent a newer, more confident nation was not confined to the pommel horse and the rings. When he retired in 1988, Li did not — as might be expected of Chinese sportsmen of his stature — become coach to the next generation of superstar gymnasts. Instead, in 1990, he started a sporting-goods business named after himself — an act of trumpet blowing that was virtually taboo in an era when individual athletic reputations were still second to national glory. But the Li Ning Company has flourished. By the end of this year, it will have 4,100 stores operating in China, trailing only giants Nike and Adidas in the domestic market. Now Li has his eyes set on the worldwide market for affordable shoes, and has signed basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal as a pitchman. The company also hopes to use marketing opportunities afforded by the Beijing Games in 2008 to celebrate its own relentless progress. And why not? Li’s business career shows that in the new China corporate mettle can have just as much luster as Olympic gold.