Yueling CHEN

In 1992, Chen Yueling won the first Olympic race walking title for women. The pre-race favorite was the 1991 World champion Alina Ivanova from Russia and she led the race early on, but it was a very hot day and with one kilometer to go, Chen and her teammate Li Chunxiu led, chased by Ivanova and her teammate Yelena Nikolayeva. While entering the tunnel to the stadium, Ivanova and Nikolayeva caught the Chinese pair and Ivanova “sprinted” to the finish only to be disqualified for her third warning for lifting. Chen held on for gold, beating Nikolayeva by a second.

Chen did mountain climbing and distance running before taking up race walking in 1985. On the Chinese national team from 1987-93, she won the 10 km race walk at the 1989 Asian Championships and 1990 Asian Games. In 1991, she was second at the Universiade and finished eighth at the World Championships. In 1987 she also set a 10K track walk world record of 43:52.1. Chen retired from sports in 1993 and moved to the United States to attend Brigham Young University. She then moved to San Diego, where she attended Palomar College and in 2001 became Director of Asian Marketing for Imagenetix, Inc., a distributor of health and nutritional products. Chen became a naturalized US citizen in April 2000 and made a brief comeback to compete at the 2000 Olympics for her new country, finishing 38th in the 20 km race walk.