Deng Yaping

Deng Yaping (simplified Chinese: 邓亚萍; traditional Chinese: 鄧亞萍; born February 5, 1973 in Zhengzhou, Henan) is a Chinese table tennis player, who won six world championships and four Olympic championships between 1989 and 1997. She is regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.

Career

Deng began playing table tennis at age of five, and four years later she won the provincial junior championship. She was age 13 when she won her first national championship.

Despite her success, she was initially denied a spot on the national team because she was so short (she stood only 1.5 metres [4 feet 11 inches] tall). She was finally included on the national team in 1988. She teamed with Qiao Hong to win her first world championship title in the women's doubles competition in 1989. Two years later in 1991, Deng won her first singles world championship.

At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, she won a gold medal in both the singles and doubles competitions and repeated the feat at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, USA. She also earned singles and doubles titles at the 1995 and 1997 world championships.