STRONG WOMAN: Chen Xiexia lifts up her gold medal at the women's 48 kg weightlifting competition award ceremony

Just 28 days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, Chen Xiexia, a hot favorite for the Olympic women's 48 kg weightlifting title, injured her left leg during training. The injury almost forced her to drop out of competition, but the 25-year-old managed to overcome the setback and lived up to expectations on August 9, the day after the opening ceremony, when she outclassed a handful of world-class competitors to win the gold medal, the host's first gold at the Games.

Chen succeeded in all six attempts during the final, snatching 95 kg and jerking 117 kg for a winning total of 212 kg, a new Olympic record. It was also China's first Olympic gold medal in this category.

Besides being anxious to please the home crowd, Chen had other reasons to be nervous. China has been training A-list women's 48 weightlifters for a long time. In the 19 world weightlifting championships that have included this event, Chinese female lifters have won 17 titles. However, before Chen, no Chinese lifter in this event had stood on the top podium at the Olympics. In the latest world rankings of the International Federation of Weightlifting, Chen was ranked No.1 in this event after winning the title at last year's world championships.

Despite the pressure, when Chen stood in front of the barbell, she found it easy to focus. "I didn't feel anything special. I have tried my best to compete, whether or not this medal was the first gold," said Chen, who waved to thank the enthusiastic home fans from the podium with a smile. "I wanted to try as hard as I could and achieve as much as I can," she said.

Before the competition, Ma Wenguang, Director of the Weightlifting, Wrestling and Judo Administrative Center under the State General Administration of Sport of China, showed his full confidence in Chen. "She will definitely get the gold medal by just repeating what she did in training sessions," Ma said.

According to Ma, although Chen has little experience competing in international games, she showed great composure and awareness.

In order to give Chen the best chance of winning, the national weightlifting team carefully arranged her timetable. Her match was in the morning, but Chen was used to competing in the afternoon or evening, so they rescheduled her daily activities to prepare her. Her coach Ma Wenhui said the timetable was so detailed that it accounted for every minute of Chen's day.

Farmer's daughter

Born to a farming family in Guangdong Province, Chen began weightlifting training at the age of nine. Since she became a national hero for winning China's first gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, Chen's parents have had to receive waves of journalists at their home. Excited as they are, they try to keep a low profile on their daughter's achievement. "Life for us has not changed at all. I still have to work in the field every day," said Liang Jinhui, Chen's mother.

According to her parents, Chen has been able to keep the family laughing with her naughty and funny facial expressions since she was young. Even at the press conference after the match, Chen smiled with her tongue out and only showed a little shyness when answering questions.

In the eyes of Chen's father, Chen has been energetic, outgoing and decisively optimistic since she was very young. This character has carried her through her 16 years of hard training.

In 1992, when Chen was a third-grade student in primary school, Li Bingming, a weightlifting coach at a local sports school, picked her despite her diminutive figure of less than 1.2 meters. The girl struck Li as having a perfect body structure for weightlifting, with strong arm muscles and outstanding performance in long jumping and running tests. When Li called on Chen's father to ask for permission to train her as a weightlifter, he got the answer, "You should. She could help me to pull the flatbed tricycle at the age of six."

School tuition fees for Chen and her older brother once placed an enormous financial burden on their parents. They used to work 18-hour days in the fields cultivating rice, sugar cane and fruits and vegetables, which they sold at markets. They even borrowed a large sum of money to support their daughter's weightlifting schooling.

In 1999, Chen was selected for a weightlifting team, where she was given a monthly living subsidy of 175 yuan ($25).

In her first 14 years' training, she considered terminating her sporting career several times and was not decorated with any major title until winning the gold medal at the national weightlifting games in 2006. Last year, Chen broke the world record in her event.

Supporting Chen through the bad times over many years, Chen's father has taught himself all the rules and world records of weightlifting.

Chen remained modest even after becoming world champion. She regularly called her former coach Zhong Chengchan in Guangdong when she was training with the national team in Beijing and mailed him postcards for every festival. When Chen thought about quitting after failing to enter China's weightlifting draft for the Athens Olympics, Zhong persuaded her to continue.

Chen's father is proud of his daughter's achievements and keeps a box of her medals that he shows to journalists. "She is such a good daughter. Even when she came home during training breaks when she was in Guangdong, she helped us in the fields," he said.