Yang Wenjun

Yang Wenjun, born 25 December 1983 in Sichuan province, is a Chinese flatwater canoer. He won the Canadian canoe C-2 500m gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics with partner Meng Guanliang - China's first-ever Olympic medal in the sport.

Yang's first major international success came at the 2002 Asian Games where, aged only 18, he won two gold C-2 medals with Wang Bing. At the 2003 world championships in Gainesville,USA he was the youngest of the individual C-1 1000m finalists, finishing a very creditable seventh overall.

At the start of the 2004 season he formed a new C-2 partnership with the more experienced Meng. On their first international appearance together in Komatsu, Japan, they shocked observers by posting a 500m time of 1:40.27, the fourth-fastest in the world. Then, in June, they won the prestigious Duisburg World Cup.

At the Olympic Games in Athens, they were drawn in the toughest heat alongside all the main medal contenders. They won the heat in a time of 1:38.916, almost a full second ahead of Cubans Rojas and Ledys Balceiro. The final was much closer with less than a second separating the first eight contenders but Meng and Yang again came out on top, beating the Cuban pair to win the gold medal.

Yang is 177 cm (5'10") tall and weighs 77 kg (169 lbs). Since 2002 he has been trained by Polish coach Marek Ploch.