CYCLISTS from China

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Chinese Cyclists of all time. This list of famous Chinese Cyclists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Gong Jinjie (1986 - )

With an HPI of 25.22, Gong Jinjie is the most famous Chinese Cyclist.  Her biography has been translated into 20 different languages on wikipedia.

Gong Jinjie (Chinese: 宫金杰; pinyin: Gōng Jīnjié, born 12 November 1986) is a Chinese professional track cyclist, a member of the provincial Jilin Team since 2002 and the Chinese National Team since 2005. Her coaches include Yongqing Wang (王永庆) and Sean Eadie.

2. Guo Shuang (1986 - )

With an HPI of 24.50, Guo Shuang is the 2nd most famous Chinese Cyclist.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Guo Shuang (郭爽, born February 26, 1986) is a Chinese professional track cyclist. She won two bronze medals at the 2006 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, in Sprint and Keirin, and two silver medals at the 2007 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, again in Sprint and Keirin. Guo had an eventful semi-final in the sprint at the 2008 Summer Olympics, having won the first heat and conceded the second to her opponent Anna Meares, the third heat saw Guo come down the banking too steeply and her front wheel slipped from beneath her. The heat was re-run and although Guo won by a few millimetres, she was relegated for coming down the tack and pushing Meares onto the côte d'azure on the final lap. This put Meares through to the final ride-off for gold. Guo went on to win the final ride-off for the bronze against Willy Kanis. Guo competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She and Gong Jinjie set a world record of 32.447 seconds in the qualification round of the team sprint event, which they then improved upon with 32.422 in the next round. They went on to finish first in the final against the German team, but were disqualified for an early relay, and were relegated to the silver medal instead. Guo and Gong's coach Daniel Morelon maintains that the pair were "robbed" of the gold medal, and described it as an "injustice". He complained that the judges refused to provide a "video footage of the race on slow motion", and only provided a "vague explanation" for the infringement they had allegedly committed. However, the British cycling champions Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish, who were also disqualified for a similar reason earlier on in the competition, accepted the judges decision and chose not to claim that they were unfairly robbed of a medal. Pendleton recovered and went on to win a gold medal in the women's keirin event with Guo Shuang coming 2nd.

3. Zhong Tianshi (1991 - )

With an HPI of 18.10, Zhong Tianshi is the 3rd most famous Chinese Cyclist.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Zhong Tianshi (Chinese: 钟天使; pinyin: Zhōng Tiānshǐ, born 2 February 1991) is a Chinese track cyclist. She represented her nation at the 2012, 2014 and 2015 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. In 2015, she became world champion in the team sprint and won bronze in the sprint. At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, she and her partner Gong Jinjie established a world record of 31.928 seconds in the qualification round of the team sprint event, before sprinting their way towards a gold-medal triumph for the Chinese track cycling team in the final match against Russia. On 2 August 2021, she teamed with Bao Shanju and defended her Olympic championship in the women's team sprint at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, thus becoming the first Chinese cyclist to win two Olympic gold medals. During the first round, she and Bao set the new world record of 31.804 seconds. While being awarded at the medals ceremony, Zhong and her partner Bao were seen on top of the podium with Mao Zedong pin-badges affixed to their team sporting jackets, alluding to symbolic patriotism; however, according to Graham Dunbar and Joe McDonald at Associated Press, this symbolism may have been in breach of Olympic Charter Rule 50 (which prohibits political statements on the podium), and that this "incident came one day after silver medalist Raven Saunders (standing below gold medalist Gong Lijiao of China) crossed the wrists of her raised arms on the podium", to which Dunbar and McDonald further suggested that it may have been "a response to the (Gong/Saunders) women's shot-put medal ceremony".