Chen Zhong (Taekwondoin)

Chen Zhong
Personal information
Nationality:	People's Republic of China
Birthday:	November 22, 1982
Place of birth:	Jiaozuo
Size:	183 cm

Chen Zhong ( Chinese  陳 中 , Pinyin Chén Zhōng , born November 22, 1982 in Jiaozuo ) is a former Chinese Taekwondoin who was active in the heavyweight division. With two Olympic victories, she is the most successful Taekwondo in the Olympic Games .

Chen played basketball at a sports school for several years before she learned taekwondo in 1995. Two years later she was accepted into the national team, and in 2000 she finally went to an elite sports school. Chen celebrated her first successes in 1998. She won bronze at the Asian Games in Bangkok and silver at the Asian Championships in Ho Chi Minh City . A year later she was able to win a medal right away at her first World Championship in Edmonton in 1999 with bronze in the class up to 72 kilograms. Chen achieved her final breakthrough in 2000. She was first Asian heavyweight champion in Hong Kong and later took part in the Olympic Games in Sydney . In the heavyweight over 67 kilograms she reached the final with three victories and was Olympic champion after a final victory against Natalja Iwanowa . Chen remained successful in the years that followed. In the class up to 72 kilograms she won the silver medal at the 2001 World Championships in Jeju-si and the 2002 Asian Games in Busan , repeated winning the 2002 Asian Championships in Amman and won bronze in the heavyweight over 72 kilograms at the 2003 World Championships in Garmisch- Partenkirchen to fight for their third World Cup medal in a row. Chen also started at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and repeated the Olympic heavyweight victory after defeating Myriam Baverel in the final .

After the Athens Games, Chen took a long break from Taekwondo. However, she was able to build on old successes at the 2007 World Cup in Beijing . In the heavyweight division, she became world champion for the first time. One year she won her third title at the Asian Championships in Henan . She qualified for her third Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, but this time could not build on the previous successes. In the quarter-finals she lost to Sarah Stevenson after she hit the decisive head hit a second before the end of the fight, which was finally recognized after protest and video evidence. Chen finished ninth in the final ranking. After the games, she ended her active career.

Web links

• Chen Zhong in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Chen Zhong (Taekwondo) on the pages of TaekwondoData .com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chen Zhong. Retrieved July 7, 2012 . 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Chen is the family name here, Zhong is the first name.