A lot of Chinese athletes made a good impression during the recently concluded Rio 2016 Olympics, such as Chinese diver Ren Qian who gave China its seventh diving gold medal at the 10-meter event.
With the next summer games to be held in 2020 in Tokyo, in between, the Chinese Olympians have a lot of local, national, regional and international games to take part in to improve China’s medal haul in 2020. However, competing again in Tokyo is not a goal for all Rio athletes.
CRIEnglish listed five options for some of the Chinese Olympians who are considering retirement from competition.
First option is to become a coach, as what Lang Ping, former top volleyball player did after she retired. She is now the head coach of the Chinese national volleyball team. It was the same career path for Liu Guoliang, now the head coach of China’s men’s table tennis team.
For athletes contemplating going into business, the examples to emulate are Li-Ning, a gymnast who now owns a sportswear company and Li Xiaopeng, also a gymnast, now president of Viva China Holding Limited. Third example is Lao Lishi, a former diver, now an online store owner on Taobao.
Becoming a government official is a popular option taken by 60 percent of 222 Olympic champions from 1984 to 2012. The most prominent are ex-paddler and grand slammer Wang Nan, now working for the Chinese Central Committee of the Communist Young League. Former gymnast Yang Wei is an office at Hubei Province’s local sports bureau.
The younger ones, such as diver Wu Minxia, the logical choice was to enroll in a sports-related postgraduate program in Shanghai, while former gymnast He Kexin is pursuing a postgraduate degree at the Beijing Normal University.
For majority, the choice was to play their respective roles in their families as parents, son, daughter or sibling.
In Rio de Janeiro, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach declared the 2016 games closed and called on the youth of the world to meet again in Tokyo in 2020 for the 32nd Olympiad, CNN reported.