history
Rejected from the provincial team as a child for being too short (under 1.5m), she became the most dominant paddler of the 1990s, four Olympic golds across Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, plus 18 world titles. Later earned a PhD from Cambridge.
culture
Juan Antonio Samaranch, then IOC president, personally handed her most of her Olympic medals, the two became famously close friends off the court.
