40 years on

The item from July 31, 1984, in China Daily showed pistol shooter Xu Haifeng receiving the first gold medal for China in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

China went on to win 15 gold, eight silver and nine bronze medals at the 1984 Games.

Since then, the country has won more than 200 golds. In Editor’s note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy. the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Chinese athletes won the most gold medals — 51, 15 more than the United States.

In the past decades, Chinese athletes have won global fame.

Dubbed the “Prince of Gymnastics”, Li Ning won six medals at the 1984 Olympics and has established his own sportswear brand.

Diver Gao Min won the women’s springboard championship at the fifth World Swimming Championships. She won more than 70 gold medals in her career and she is also the two times gold medalist in the springboard events at the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games.

Basketball player Yao Ming played for the Houston Rockets in the NBA from 2002 to 2011. He was selected for the NBA All-Star Game eight times and is now president of the Chinese Basketball Association.

Tennis player Li Na was the first player from Asia to win a singles Grand Slam and also the world’s highest-ranked singles player from Asia. She won the 2011 French Open singles title and the 2014 Australian Open final.

In June, Su Bingtian equaled the Asian men’s 100m time of 9.91 seconds at the IAAF World Challenge meet in Madrid. He became the first Asian-born athlete to clock under 10 seconds in 2015.