Lang Ping
Won Olympic volleyball gold as a player, then as a coach, on opposite sides of the world
Lang Ping grew up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and was a tall, slightly awkward teenager when she was taken into the volleyball system. She became the hardest hitter in the game, known as the Iron Hammer, and the face of a Chinese women's team that won the World Cup in 1981, the world championship in 1982 and Olympic gold in Los Angeles in 1984. For a country just opening to the world, that team was a national obsession.
She retired with worn-out knees at 25, and instead of taking the official post offered to her she went to the United States to study, working odd jobs and living cheaply. She learned coaching from the bottom. Called back to rescue the Chinese team in 1995, she took them to Olympic silver in Atlanta and then left, exhausted, with her health suffering.
In 2005 she accepted the job of coaching the United States. Three years later, at the Beijing Olympics, her American team beat China in front of a home crowd. Some in China called her a traitor. She said she was a professional doing her job.
In 2013 she took charge of China again, rebuilt an ageing team around teenagers, and in Rio in 2016 won gold, becoming the first person to win Olympic volleyball as both player and coach. She retired after Tokyo.