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Date of birth: May 18, 1981
Place: Zunyi, Guizhou province

Entry for Beijing Games: Boxing, light-flyweight class

Career highlights: Bronze medal, 2004 Athens; 1st, World Amateur Championships 2005, 2007; Gold medal, Asian Games, 2006

Fleet of foot and fast as lightning, Zou Shiming can run circles around his opponents with his hyperactive, martial arts-inflected boxing style. 'Dang, he can move, and I can't catch him,' US  southpaw Rau'shee Warren told his corner before the young American lost to Zou in their 48kg division bout in Athens.


 Zou ended up with a bronze medal in the light flyweight class - not bad, but it could have been gold if he had not thrown away his early lead to eventual winner Yan Barthelemi Varela of Cuba.


 'With more experience, he could have won that fight,' mused former coach Li Qingsheng afterwards.

 After shocking the world  by capturing China's first Olympic boxing medal, he cemented his position as the world's top light flyweight last autumn by picking up his second title at the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Chicago.

 He had to starve himself to do it - complaints about hunger and how much he pined for Sichuan hot pot while in Chicago fill his blog - but the blood, sweat and hunger cramps paid off. Zou's performance was hailed as one of the best  of the tournament and it earned him a ticket to Beijing.

 Yet critics complain that watching the 26-year-old fight is more like seeing a timid teenager swat flies than marvelling at a gladiator going in for the kill. 

Coach Li claims this defensive-minded strategy stems from wushu training as a 13-year-old. Others credit his ability to flit between different styles at ease.  Zou switched to boxing from wushu as a teenager after watching the 1996 Olympics.


 'I remember being moved to tears at seeing a Chinese athlete standing on top of the podium at the Atlanta Games,' he said on his blog. 'I started to imagine I could do the same for my country.'

 Like many young Chinese boys, he grew up watching Jackie Chan movies  and dreaming of conquering the world, but the reality was much different. Effeminate looking, scrawny and mollycoddled by an over-protective mother, he was more supernerd than superhero. 'When Zou was a kid he looked a bit weak and was not very distinguished among the boys,' said Zhang Chuanliang, chief coach of the Chinese national boxing team, and the man who has spent years moulding the fighter. 'What's more, his arms were not long enough to be a good boxer.'  Now Zou is ranked top of his Olympic weight class and the second-best pound-for-pound amateur fighter in the world, behind Russian lightweight Alexey Tischenko, by ABA Boxing, which compiles unofficial world rankings.   He won his maiden World Championship medal (bronze) in 2003 in Thailand. then claimed the crown two years later in his home county of Mianyang. Before defending his world title in Chicago last year, he went to Doha in December 2006 to snatch a relatively easy gold at the Asian Games.

Since then he has become the poster boy for China boxing and is aiming to live his dream on top of a Beijing podium.





No 39: Zou Shiming