Zhang Lirong

Zhang Lirong ( Chinese  張 麗榮  /  张 丽荣 , Pinyin Zhāng Lìróng ; born March 3, 1973 ) is a former Chinese long-distance runner .

In 1992 she won over 3000 m bronze at the World Junior Athletics Championships .

The following year, she was fourth in the Chinese Marathon Championships and won gold in the 3000m at the East Asian Games . Over the same distance, she was part of a purely Chinese podium at the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart as third place: Gold went to Qu Yunxia , silver to Zhang Linli . At the Asian Athletics Championships , she won silver over 10,000 m .

Shortly thereafter, she stayed at the Chinese national games both as a runner-up and fifth under the old world record of Tatjana Kasankina . At the 1993 IAAF World Cup marathon , which took place as part of the San Sebastián Marathon , Chinese women again took all the podium places: Wang Junxia won ahead of Zhang Linli and Zhang Lirong.

In 1994, Zhang Lirong won silver in the marathon at the Asian Games in Hiroshima . At the end of the year, the training group led by the controversial coach Ma Junren , which included Zhang and the other top Chinese runners, fell apart . Ma was charged with embezzling prize money and physically abusing the athletes. These allegations were corroborated in a 1997 book by journalist Zhao Yu. Another shadow fell on the achievements of “Mas Army” in 2000 when six athletes he supervised were removed from the roster for the Sydney Olympics for the use of erythropoietin (EPO) .

Personal bests

• 1500 m : 3: 59.70 min, September 11, 1993, Beijing
• 3000 m: 8: 21.84 min, September 13, 1993, Beijing
• 10,000 m: 31: 09.25 min, September 8, 1993, Beijing
• Marathon: 2:24:52 h, April 4, 1993, Tianjin

Web links

• Zhang Lirong in the database of World Athletics (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robert Katzenbeisser: When are the Chinese coming? In: ÖLV news. No. 5, November 8, 2008, p. 8 ( PDF; 747 KB )
2. ↑ Duncan Mackay: Hopes raised for war on drugs as Ma's army beats Olympic retreat . In: The Guardian . September 7, 2000

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