(CHEN KAI)

Zhou Yang won China's third gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, in the women's 1,500-meter short track speed skating on February 20. Her winning time of 2:16.993 created a new Olympic record.

The 18-year-old first-time Olympian is China's first winter Olympic gold medalist born in the 1990s.

Zhou, 19, is the youngest member of the Chinese women's short track speed skating team. She started skating at the age of eight. At the 2008 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in the Republic of Korea, Zhou won the gold medal in the women's 3,000-meter super final.

For the past two seasons, Zhou has been ranked first in the world in the women's 1,500-meter short track. She also set a world record for the distance of 2:16.729 in Salt Lake City, the United States, in February 2008.