Wu Jingyu

Wu Jingyu was born in Jingdezhen, a city in Jiangxi province in eastern China better known for centuries of porcelain production than for sport. She began training in taekwondo at 13, relatively late for an athlete who would go on to compete at the highest level, in a discipline where reach and height usually decide contests.

She was consistently one of the smallest fighters in her weight class, and early in her career this counted against her. In 2006, at China's first International Open, she faced Wang Ying, a reigning world champion around 15 centimetres taller, and won by using speed and footwork rather than power, a template she would rely on for the rest of her career. It was a signal that she could compete with, and beat, fighters built very differently to her.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with a home crowd behind her, she won gold in the women's flyweight division. Four years later in London she won again, becoming one of only a handful of taekwondo fighters to defend an Olympic title, and added multiple Asian Games and World Championship medals across her career.

She continued competing into her thirties, well past the point most fighters in her weight class retire, and remained a leading figure in Chinese taekwondo long after her Olympic wins, mentoring younger fighters coming through the same provincial systems that had produced her.