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.
