China's Former Olympic Diving Champion Becomes District Official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 05, 2002

China's Former Olympic Diving Champion Becomes District Official

China's former Olympic diving champion Xiong Ni on Monday took a temporary governmental post as the deputy director of the Chaoyang District of Yiyang City in his native hometown of Hunan Province.

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China's former Olympic diving champion Xiong Ni on Monday took a temporary governmental post as the deputy director of the Chaoyang District of Yiyang City in his native hometown of Hunan Province.

While working on the new post, Xiong 28, remains as a leading official of the provincial sports bureau.

Joining Xiong at the same post is Tang Jiuhong, a former women' s badminton world champion, who will also keeps her official post in charge of the badminton administration in the provincial sports bureau.

Designating temporary work posts for the two former star athletes is part of a new program of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and local government to bring about a new and younger generation of officials. Their experience at the new post is expected to help them grow fast to be really mature sports officials, a spokesman of the local sports bureau said.

With Yiyang city being chosen as the site for this year's provincial games, the local authorities are pooling together various sort of talents to better prepare for the games. A leading official of CPC's municipal committee said that the two well-known former athletes are expected to help greatly promote local sports and economy.

After winning the men's three-meter springboard diving title at the 9th national games last November in Guangzhou, Xiong retired from a glittering career marked with titles from the national championships, Asian championships, World Cup meets, World University Games and Olympic Games.

Tang, 33, also a Hunan native, had won the women's singles and team badminton titles at such world-class events as the Asian Games, Asian championships, world championships, World Cup, All- England Open, Uber Cup and World Grand Prix meets, before retiring in 1993.

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