Kong Linghui Leads Nation's Top 10 Athletes

China's Top 10 Athletes Selection for 2000 was unveiled in Beijing April 8. All the selected are Olympic champions. They won the honor with their outstanding performances at the Sydney Olympiad.

The selection result is: Table tennis champion Kong Linghui won 418762 votes, standing out the ace in the selection. Following Kong are Liu Xuan (gymnastics), Xiong Ni (diving), Wang Nan (table tennis), Fu Mingxia (diving), Li Xiaopeng (gymnastics), Zhan Xugang (weightlifting), Wang Liping (track and field), Tao Luna (shooting) and Gong Zhichao (badminton). Unfortunately, no one in the events of football, basketball and volleyball was selected due to bad performance in Sydney.

The selection is so far the 22nd. China won 28 golds, the most in number at the last year's Sydney Olympic Games. But this has presented some difficulties in the selection with the candidates increased to as many as 56. Statistics show that the selection received more than 800,000 ballots from the country's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and cities.

(People's Daily 04/09)