By Luke T. Johnson (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-22 07:40

Long before Yao Ming ever dribbled a basketball, China was in love with a volleyball star.

Lang Ping, the "Iron Hammer", is one of China's most cherished sports stars. But beyond the indelible mark she left on China sports, Lang endures as a symbol of Chinese pride and joy. She is like what Yao Ming is to today's China - so much more than an athlete, she is the face of a generation.

Lang Ping

"Lang Ping represents the past generation, and Yao Ming is more representative of China's image in the world today," said Wei Jizhong, first vice-president of FIVB, volleyball's global governing body.

Lang was a sort of spiritual leader during the early years of China's reform and opening up. She led the women's volleyball team to several world titles in the early 1980s, including a famous victory over the US to claim Olympic gold in Los Angeles in 1984. She helped China establish itself as a force in world sports and, by extension, a major player in world affairs.

Yao fulfils a similar role for China in the 21st century, though his exploits are more symbolic of China's integration into the global economy - he is a free-market athlete. Unlike Lang, who was the face of collective success leading the national women's volleyball team as a player and later as a coach, Yao's is a story of an individual representing China in the world.

"I can't imagine not being part of a team. But there's only one Yao Ming," Lang said in a recent interview with China Daily.

"For China, the women's volleyball team is always a family you have to think of teamwork.

"With Yao Ming, it's very different. He's more of an individual."

Both Yao and Lang currently live in the US though their jobs are very different. Yao brings glory to his country leading the Houston Rockets in the NBA. Lang became the coach of the US women's volleyball team in 2005, a considerably more controversial job that some say is a "betrayal".

Wei thinks the way Chinese people view Lang's decision to coach the US has more to do with a generation gap. When he asked some teenagers a couple years ago about their opinion of Lang's coaching job, he said they thought it was "very natural", but he said older generations tend to have different ideas.

"The (sports) world is now global," he said about the international exchange of athletes and coaches. "We need some help from a foreign country, and, in return, we can help foreign countries. That's the world."

Lang is not the only Chinese-born coach to find success in the US. James Li (better known as Li Li in China), one of China's top-10 middle-distance runners in the early 1980s, was named USA Track and Field's Coach of the Year in November.

Qiao Liang, a gymnastics star in the late 1980s, is now the coach of US gymnastics standout Shawn Johnson, a gold-medal favorite in Beijing. But Lang, far better known in China than these other two, elicits stronger reactions from the public simply because people feel more passionately about her.

Both Lang and Yao will be in Beijing this summer. If the Olympics marks China's arrival in the 21st century, both Yao and Lang represent China's role in the globalized world of sports.