Deng Yaping won both singles and doubles in table tennis at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. She is considered one of the greatest table tennis players in history. From 1987 to 1997, she won eighteen world championships including four Olympic championships. She was #1 in the world rankings for eight years, from 1990 until she retired at age 24, in 1997. (Table tennis became an Olympic event in 1988 at the Seoul Games.)

Deng began playing table tennis at age 5. She was coached by her father, a table tennis coach. She explained, “Even from an early age, I dreamed of being world champion.” Deng won her first national championship at age 13.
(Zhengzhou, China: 1992)