Jiao Zhimin (
Chinese: 焦志敏; born December 1, 1963)
is a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
-born naturalised-
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
former
table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
player. She won a
bronze medal in women's singles and a
silver medal in women's doubles at the
1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
She was a semi-finalist in women's singles and doubles at the 1985
World Championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
in
Gothenburg.
At the 1987 World Championships in
New Delhi
New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...
she was runner-up in the mixed doubles, and was a member of China's victorious team.
Personal life
In 1984, she met South Korean table tennis player
Ahn Jae-hyung at the 1984
Asian Table Tennis Championships in
Islamabad, Pakistan. She and Ahn married in 1989 in
Sweden due to the lack of
diplomatic relations between China and South Korea at that time. Their marriage generated a massive hype within the South Korean media.
The couple's son,
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...
er
An Byeong-hun
An Byeong-hun ( ko, 안병훈; born 17 September 1991), also known as Byeong-Hun An or Ben An, is a professional golfer from Seoul, South Korea. In August 2009, he became the youngest-ever winner of the U.S. Amateur.
Amateur career
Born in Se ...
, became the youngest champion in
United States Amateur Championship history,
winning the 2009 event at the age of 17.
After her marriage to Ahn, Jiao retired from professional table tennis and acquired
South Korean citizenship. She engaged in business, and started a Korean restaurant and fashion store in
Harbin. From 2004, she served as the chairman of an information consulting service founded by her in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. In 2010, she was appointed as a
public relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...
ambassador for
Jeju Island, a position which she would serve for two years. In 2013, she was appointed as the chairman of Omnitel China. In recent years, Jiao has hosted a talk show on China's
CCTV-5
CCTV-5 (), also known as the Sports Channel, part of the China Central Television family of networks, is the main sports broadcaster in the People's Republic of China. CCTV-5 began broadcasting on 1 January 1995. CCTV-5 now broadcasts 24 hours ...
television sports channel. Following the outbreak of
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
in 2020, she has since returned to South Korea.
References
Living people
1963 births
Naturalized citizens of South Korea
Chinese female table tennis players
Olympic silver medalists for China
Olympic bronze medalists for China
Olympic medalists in table tennis
Asian Games medalists in table tennis
Table tennis players at the 1986 Asian Games
Medalists at the 1986 Asian Games
Asian Games gold medalists for China
Asian Games silver medalists for China
Chinese emigrants to South Korea
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
People from Yichun, Heilongjiang
Table tennis players from Heilongjiang
Naturalised table tennis players
Olympic table tennis players for China
World Table Tennis Championships medalists
Table tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
People who lost Chinese citizenship
South Korean expatriates in China
Businesspeople from Heilongjiang
21st-century South Korean businesspeople
{{PRChina-tabletennis-bio-stub