Few athletes have risen to the height of Deng Yaping, a young woman who dominated international table tennis for six years before retiring in 1997. When she put the paddle down, the energetic Deng threw herself into academics, earning advanced degrees in the United Kingdom and working with various sporting bodies to make the Beijing Olympiad a rousing success.
With her slick pulled-back hairs, stylish golden-framed glasses, diminutive figure and look of unwavering determination, she gives the impression of a worldly business woman - a female Napoleon out to take on the world. But with the tact of a diplomat and the tenderness and compassion of a charity worker, it's hard to pin a career, let alone a definitive character, on Deng Yaping - unless one has had the opportunity to see her in her former milieu: the table tennis.
In the world of women's table tennis, Deng was the greatest champion the sport has ever seen. Wearing street clothes, one would never suspect that Deng, a fierce competitor in her prime - she retired six years ago - was the reigning queen of the sport that helped introduce China to the world at-large.
Deng is a study in excellence. In her every pursuit she achieves the goals she sets out for herself - athletic and otherwise.
Following retirement from sport, Deng earned a bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University, one of China's top universities, and a post-graduate degree at the University of Nottingham. But Deng, having turned 30, has only just begun.
"In addition to what I learned in class, the jobs with various international and domestic institutions has opened a window to a whole new world for me," says Deng, an 18-time world trophy holder, during her recent visit to Shanghai as a Laureus World Sports Academy member.
The position in the world's most prestigious sports academy is merely one of the avocations currently on Deng's agenda. She also serves on the Athletes Commission of the International Olympic Committee. In addition, Deng was re-elected a member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, late last year. The latest title on her vita came from the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the 29th Olympiad: They recruited the four-time Olympic gold-medalist as an official in their marketing department.
"All the jobs and titles I hold have benefited me by increasing my experience and knowledge," says Deng. "And by assuming my responsibilities in these various bodies, I tap into my own potential in sports-related social affairs."
Among these affairs, Deng gives top priority to her work for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, where she's in charge of seeking domestic sponsors.
Attending a private buffet in Xintiandi during her visit, she took time out from socializing to seek advice from her new associates at Laureus World Sports Academy on Olympiad marketing.
"She talked to me about the Olympics affairs. I used to work for both Atlanta and Sydney Games, which she expressed great interest in," says Dr Guy Sanan, general manager with Laureus World Sports Awards Ltd.
Sanan recommended to Deng the works of Peter Ueberroth, the most successful Olympiad organizer in history.
"I really appreciated his help and that of some other academy members," Deng says. "Their advice not only helps with my job at the Olympic committee but will also assist with my doctoral thesis at Cambridge."
Cambridge is the latest leg on Deng's five-year-old academic odyssey. Her program there, entitled "The Study of the Impact of the Beijing Olympiad on China's Economic Development," is linked to her Olympics marketing position. It's not the first time that Deng has entered the ivy-covered halls of a British university. The University of Nottingham awarded her a master's degree last September after the former table tennis star carried out an extensive research program and submitted a dissertation about her beloved sport.
"The essay, 'From Bound Feet to Olympic Champions: The Case Study of Chinese Women Table Tennis,' revolved around Chinese women's achievements in sports, especially table tennis. I probed into the underlying reasons behind the huge success made by female athletes in this country," she recalls.
And Deng exemplifies that success in every way. Apart from dozens of continental and world trophies on her mantle, she dominated the international table tennis ranking system for six straight years from 1993 to early 1999, an achievement that doesn't seem likely to be matched in the near future.
Some questioned her decision to quit a glittering career as a table tennis player at the early age of 24. But Deng had her own agenda.
"In terms of competitive sport, I had it all. And at the moment I was eager to take on some new challenges," Deng says.
The multiple-world champion was enrolled in the English Department of Tsinghua University to study for her undergraduate degree. By her own admission, her initial encounter with the instructor was something of an embarrassment.
"In the very first class, the teacher asked whether I could read the alphabet. Actually I can - despite the fact that I was not able to distinguish the lower case of a letter from its capital version," Deng says.
It was not her fault. Deng was only one of the hundreds of thousands government-funded athletes who devoted their whole adolescence exclusively to their respective sports in China. Academics came second. To close the gap between herself and classmates, Deng signed up for an exchange student program with the University of Nottingham's Center of English Language Education in her sophomore year. Thanks to the one-year stay in the United Kingdom, and, more significantly, her own painstaking efforts, Deng's English improved rapidly.
Among those who paid respect to Deng's academic success and the resolve she showed along this path was Sanan, the Laureus World Sports Academy official in charge of Deng's induction.
"I began to contact her as early as last spring, when she was in the thick of preparation of the master's dissertation at University of Nottingham. Deng was so preoccupied with her school work that she never managed to meet me face-to-face during the whole process even though we were just a few hundred miles apart," recalls Sanan, who is based in London. "It seemed to me she was always buried in the hefty volumes. Amazing."
But Deng remains humble. What she often talks about is the fate of many other fellow Chinese athletes who never achieved the degree of success that she did, and therefore were not the beneficiaries of special opportunities.
"I've known lot of average, or outstanding, athletes who fell into obscurity, even poverty after their retirement. Nobody offered them the opportunity to go to university. They shouldn't be out in the cold," she says.
Action speaks louder than words. Deng submitted a draft calling for intensified government efforts to address the welfare of retired sports players during this year's plenary session of 10th CPPCC. The move struck a winning chord among fellow conference members and drew attention to the plight of retired athletes.
"I admit that my current jobs, coupled with my doctoral study, are a great burden mentally or physically," Deng admits.
"But I know I must manage to handle them well since they're more responsibilities than jobs. That's another way to pay back to those who supported me as a table tennis player," she adds.
(eastday.com April 11, 2003)
