Premier Wen Jiabao showed promise as a basketball player when he was a boy, a sports teacher at his former school has said.

"The premier was a proficient player," Yuan Hua, who has taught basketball at Nankai Middle School in Tianjin since 1976, but never actually coached Wen, was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the Tianjin Daily.

The premier attended the school from 1954 to 1960.

Yuan did, however, donate a photograph of Wen with his school basketball team to an exhibition currently being held at the Tianjin Municipal Archives.

"My predecessor, Cao Guoxi (who coached Wen), first showed me the picture in 1994, on the school's 90th anniversary," Yuan said.

Ten years later, he gave it to me as a gift on the school's 100th anniversary, he said.

Cao told me Wen was a smart and skillful left-handed player, Yuan said.

"The most significant thing he said was that Wen never missed a single training session or match, no matter what the weather," he said.

On Monday, Wen showed he still has a knack for the game, as he shot hoops at the Beijing Olympics Basketball Gymnasium in Wukesong.

Wen told the national team he loved playing the game as a young man and that basketball is still his favorite sport.