Sun Qingmei (; born June 19, 1966) is a Chinese former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played for the China national team at the

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

and

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

editions of the

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

and won a silver medal at the

1996 Atlanta Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

Club career

During her childhood in Hebei, Sun's parents locked her in her bedroom in a bid to stop her playing football. She was a member of the state

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

team when she started football training in 1983 and joined the Hebei club in 1984. After the 1991 Women's World Cup, Sun accepted a transfer to the

Japan Women's Football League The , commonly known as the , is a semi-professional women's association football league in Japan. The Nadeshiko League consists of two divisions that correspond to the second and third levels of the Japanese women's football pyramid respective ...

with Matsushita Denki. She helped the

Takatsuki, Osaka is a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is located in northern Osaka's Hokusetsu region. As of 2020, the city had an estimated population of 347,944 and a population density of 3,300 persons per km². The total area is 105.31 km². The c ...

-based team win the league title in the 1994 season.

International career

At the 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament in

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

she was part of the hosts' team who lost the third place play-off to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. The Chinese press voted her into the tournament's official all-star team. At the

1991 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup was the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national association football teams. It took place in Guangdong, China from 16 to 30 November 1991. FIFA, football's international gove ...

, Sun played the full 80 minutes in all four of China's games. The hosts reached the quarter-finals before losing 1–0 to

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. In the first ever

match, Sun scored the fourth goal in China's 4–0 win over eventual finalists

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

on 16 November 1991. In 1996 Sun won the Olympic silver medal with the Chinese team. She played all five matches and scored three goals. She retired from football after helping China retain the

AFC Women's Asian Cup The AFC Women's Asian Cup (formerly known as the AFC Women's Championship) is a quadrennial competition in women's football for national teams which belong to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It is the oldest women's international football ...

at the 1997 AFC Women's Championship in December 1997.

International goals

References

External links

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Profile
1966 births Living people Chinese women's footballers Chinese expatriate footballers China women's international footballers Olympic footballers of China Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for China 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup players Olympic medalists in football 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup players Asian Games medalists in football Footballers at the 1990 Asian Games Footballers at the 1994 Asian Games Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Handan Speranza Osaka-Takatsuki players Nadeshiko League players Expatriate women's footballers in Japan Asian Games gold medalists for China Women's association football forwards Medalists at the 1990 Asian Games Medalists at the 1994 Asian Games FIFA Century Club {{PRChina-women-footy-bio-stub