Table tennis star serves up new spin at People's Daily

Table tennis great Deng Yaping , a household name on the mainland, will be appointed to a senior position at the People's Daily Group, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, reportedly after the National Day holiday next month. Deng, 37, will become the president of Goso.cn, a search engine that was launched in July and co-funded by the People's Daily newspaper and its website, Goso vice-president Gong Yuguo told domestic media yesterday. Her promotion is seen as part of the party's strategy to use a celebrities to boost China's image. She is one of more than 50 celebrities in a national image video which is expected to be premiered before October 1. He Hui, a professor at the Communication University of China's school of advertising, said Deng's popularity would certainly be a boost for the search engine. Liberal scholars said it was a move to use her positive, modern image to benefit the conservative government. Shenzhen-based scholar Zhu Jianguo said it wouldn't succeed. 'The authority has again underestimated ordinary people's perception and ability to judge,' he said. 'The ordinary people are clear about who can truly represent them.' The promotion was for the party's own image, he said, and was a bit risky for Deng, who, after being so beloved and successful in her athletic career, would become an official suppressing freedom of speech. Deng's appointment was included in an internal notice for discussion and opinions - the standard procedure for newly appointed cadres - before it will be officially released after the holiday. The publicity department of the Communist Youth League of China's Beijing committee, where Deng was a deputy secretary, said yesterday that she had been transferred and had not been in her office for a week. Domestic media also reported that she would also be a deputy general secretary for the People's Daily. A spokesman for the human resources department of the People's Daily Group did not deny the reports. 'It is still processing,' he said. 'We can't announce anything until it's finalised.' Assuming Deng takes the position, going from a deputy bureau chief-level cadre to a bureau-level cadre represents a significant step up - especially for her age - and suggests a promising career in the party and the government. Deng, nicknamed the 'queen of table tennis' and 'the short giant' by the media, was world No1 from 1990 to 1997 - still a record in the women's game. Training with her father from age five, she became national champion at 13. Despite her success, she was initially denied a spot on the national team as she was considered too short at 1.5 metres. 'They thought I wouldn't be good, which was unfair to me personally,' she told CNN. 'I trained so hard every day.' She teamed up with Qiao Hong to win her first world championship in the women's doubles in 1989. Two years later, in 1991, Deng won her first singles world championship. She also won singles and doubles world titles in 1995 and 1997 (the World Championships were only in odd-numbered years then), and Olympic gold medals in both singles and doubles in 1992 in Barcelona and in 1996 in Atlanta. In 1995, she swept the singles and doubles gold medals at the World Championships in Tianjin , and China won the team gold as well. Deng retired at 24 and went back to studying, earning a bachelor's degree in English literature at Tsinghua University, a master's at the University of Nottingham and a PhD in economics at Cambridge in 2008. Her transition to life as an official began in 2003, when she joined the marketing department of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. She then became assistant director of the sports equipment centre for the General Administration of Sport and then a deputy department director of the Olympic Village. Unlike many other top athletes who go into business, coaching or sports administration after retirement, Deng moved steadily up the official ladder. From April 16 last year, she oversaw publicity, international liaison and the Beijing Youth Daily as one of the six deputy secretaries of the Communist Youth League's Beijing committee. 'She is absolutely no amateur,' Gong was quoted by the Huaxi Metropolis News as saying. 'With a PhD in economics, she will bring us something special with her spirit and management experience from the Beijing Olympics.' Deng is married to former table tennis player Lin Zhigang and had a son in 2006. She says she doesn't want him to play table tennis professionally because 'it's too hard and requires talent'. Queen's reign The move is a significant step in Deng's party and government career The number of years that Deng Yaping held the world No 1 ranking in women's table tennis: 7