Smash hit
Zhao Ruirui, 22, is considered by many the world's best female volleyball player. Tall, even for her chosen sport, she is blessed with a fierce smash. Zhao has been dubbed 'the Great Wall of volleyball' for her work at the net; at the same time, her elfin looks and sparkling eyes have earned her the nickname 'the beautiful volleyballer'.
Yet if it had been up to the Chinese government, Zhao Ruirui wouldn't exist. The second child of a Nanjing sports family, Zhao has an older sister. When Zhao's mother discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant again in 1981, the news triggered a crisis. China's one-child policy was in full swing. The Zhaos had broken the law.
Zhao Huaifu, Ruirui's father, himself from a large family, didn't want to abort the baby, nor did his wife. Zhao Huaifu had loved the rough and tumble of growing up in large family. And there was another reason: both sporty, the Zhaos had hoped for a boy to carry on the tradition. They applied to Zhao's work unit for permission for a second child. The Nanjing Sports Institute's family-planning department referred the case to the local district government, which told the Zhaos to abort. They refused.
In July 1981, with Zhao's mother already more than six months pregnant, her parents were called to a meeting attended by members of the sports institute's political departments, including a branch of the Communist Youth League. It was reportedly stormy.
In the end the Zhaos' stubbornness and the advanced pregnancy won the day and Ruirui was born on
October 8. The institute withdrew all educational and child-support privileges.
From those inauspicious beginnings Zhao has blossomed into China's star volleyball player. Now 1.96m tall, she was nicknamed Beansprout and struggled through her teens to gain weight. Now 74 kilograms, she is still slender. Legend has it that on her first day at kindergarten, aged two but 1.35m tall, Zhao cried when her mother left. To distract her a carer handed her a volleyball. Zhao stopped crying.
In 1994, aged 13 and standing a towering 1.88m, Zhao was chosen to join the army's Eight-One team, named after Army Day. She left for Beijing. First selected by Chen Zhonghe to join the national team in 1999 at the age of 17, Zhao has proved outstanding and been crucial to its success. But she is also susceptible to injury and missed the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where China fared poorly.
As well as volleyball she loves waterskiing and says her favourite food is anything cooked by her parents. The woman who is an idol to so many volleyball fans says her own heroine is Cuban legend Regla Torres, voted the best female volleyball player of the 20th century by the International Volleyball Federation.
