As the Winter Olympics heat up in PyeongChang (the opening ceremony is slated for 9pm tonight), Beijing’s sports fans will have plenty of their own rising stars to cheer on. Sure, the Middle Kingdom has long had an edge when it comes to figure skating, but that’s by no means the only sport that China is poised to succeed at this go around. Below, some of Beijing’s top sports reporters and industry insiders like Justin Downes (a Beijing based Canadian who has worked for years on developing China’s skiing scene) and Domo Yu (a skiing consultant from China who learned her trade on Alaska’s slopes) list their picks for China’s gold medal prospects.

World champion Chinese snowboarder Liu Jiayu

Justin Downes, president of Axis Leisure Management
I certainly would keep my eye on the snowboard half-pipe and freestyle aerials teams. These athletes typically come from a gymnastics background and have recently performed well on the World Cup circuit. For snowboarding, my pick would be Liu Jiayu and Cai Xuetong for female, and Zhang Yiwei for male. For freeski female I’d say Xu Mengtao, and for male, you should be sure to watch out for Qi Guangpu.

Domo Yu, CMO and co-founder of x2Rider Sports consulting
My favorite is the aerials team: Xu Mengtao, Jia Zongyang, and Qi Guangpu. But I also like half-pipe snowboarders like Liu Jiayu. Those athletes proved themselves at recent World Cup level events. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them stand on the podium in PyeongChang.

Silver medal winning Chinese speed skater Wu Dajing

Spencer Musick, sports editor at Xinhua News Agency
Probably the best medal hopes are short-track speed skating, but China has strong competition from South Korea and the US there. Wu Dajing would be one to watch for sure for speed skating, seeing as he got silver in Sochi.

Chen Xiangfeng, deputy director of sports department at China Daily
For me, China’s best gold medal prospect is figure skating world champion duo Sui Wenjing and Han Cong. They are so talented. I can’t wait to watch it. I think figure skating is so popular in China because it’s such a beautiful sport, and of course, it’s where China has long had its strongest winter Olympic showings.

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong

Mike Fox, sports reporter at CGTN
The best chance China’s got at medals is figure skating. Sui Wanjing and Han Song won the world championship last year, so a lot of hope is on them. But then there’s freestyle skiing. There’s a woman named Li Nina who got silver in Vancouver in 2010, and she’s got a very good shot at getting a medal. I’d also pick Qi Guangpu, who is quite young and upcoming and has been doing really well in the regular season. Then there’s Han Tianyu, who got a silver in Sochi in the 1500m short track for speed skating. He’ll be there again at PyeongChang, and I bet he’ll do very well.

Juha Tuominen, executive director at Sinoreach 
I have seen a few of Wu Dajing’s competitions. He is super strong, especially at the 500m. There is no one who can beat him if he has a good day. Another example of a remarkable Chinese athlete that is hard not to be a fan of is Liu Jiayu. She’s No. 2 in the world ranking of snowboarding freestyle right now. I have actually met her once and her personality, attitude and look on life are all awesome.

You can watch the 2018 Winter Olympic Games on CCTV 5 or live stream here. For the full schedule of competitions, click here.

Photos: Inside The Games, Getty Images, Ice Radio

Inge Sorensen
At the infamous 1939 Berlin Olympics, there was a little-known Danish swimmer called Inge Sorensen. She won a bronze medal in the 200m breaststroke at the tender age of 12 years and 24 days – the youngest female medalist in Olympic history. Sorensen gets extra points for refusing to hail Adolf Hitler on the podium; she later became a symbol of the anti-Nazi movement in her native Denmark. Dubbed “Little Lovely Inge” by the Danish media, Sorensen was greeted by 30,000 fans upon her return to Copenhagen. She died in Burlington, New Jersey at the age of 86. 

Marjorie Gestring
At the same Olympics, American diver Marjorie Gestring beat out rival Katherine Rawls for the gold in the three-meter springboard event. She was 13 years old, not much older than Sorensen – to this day, still the youngest gold medalist in Olympic history. After her victory, Gestring continued to compete in US national championships, even as the 1940 Summer Olympics were canceled due to World War II. She died in 1992 and has since been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame.

Dominique Moceanu
Even before getting to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, it was a tough road for 14-year-old gymnast Dominique Moceanu. She was forced to sit out the Olympic trials due to a stress fracture, but successfully petitioned her way onto the team that would later dubbed the “Magnificent Seven." At the Olympics, Moceanu struggled on the vaults and balance beam, taking a particularly nasty fall in the latter. However, the Magnificent Seven rebounded to clinch Team USA’s first-ever gold medal in women’s gymnastics – a feat that took 16 years to repeat, thanks to this year’s spunky “Fierce Five.”

Tara Lipinski
Though Tara Lipinski’s feat didn’t take place during the Summer Olympics, she has the distinction of being the youngest individual figure skating gold medalist in Winter Olympic history. During the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, the bubbly 15-year-old from Philadelphia skated her short program to music from the animated film Anastasia, followed by a free skate program that put her ahead of teammate and defending champion Michelle Kwan. How’s that for a fairy tale story? The clincher was Lipinski’s program – the most technically challenging in Olympic history. How challenging? Try “triple loop-triple loop combination jump, another triple-triple combination, and seven triple jumps total” challenging. (We don’t even know what that means, but it’s making us dizzy just reading it.) After the Olympics, Lipinski joined the professional figure skating circuit and performed in both Stars on Ice and Champions on Ice. She’s now a commentator for NBC’s Universal Sports.

Nadia Comaneci
No list of the youngest Olympians would be complete without Nadia Comaneci. At age 14, the Romanian gymnast made history at the 1976 Montreal Olympics with the first perfect 10 ever awarded in gymnastics. Her performance was so unprecedented that the scoreboard posted a “1.00,” momentarily confusing both athlete and spectators. Comaneci went on to achieve six more perfect 10s and nab three gold medals, becoming the youngest all-around gymnastics champion in Olympic history.

It’s now legally impossible to break Comaneci’s age record since the age limit was raised to 16. What’s more, the International Gymnastics Federation changed the scoring system in 1997; there is no longer a ceiling on scores. Comaneci herself, now 50 and living in Oklahoma City with her husband and son, has called for the return of the perfect 10 system to dispel confusing gymnastics scores.

To see athletes 1-5, check out our previous post, "10 Olympic Champions Under 16, Part 1."

Photos (in order of appearance): Danish Teak Classics, The Met, Getty Images, x_ships via Flickr, Dave Gilbert via Wikimedia Commons

The life of an Olympic athlete is a grueling one. Competitors must follow strict diets and rigid training schedules, all while maintaining a single-minded focus to become the very best at their sport. Failure can be heartbreaking, as seen from South Korean fencer Shin A-Lam’s controversial defeat on Day 3 of the London Summer Olympics. It’s all the more impressive when the athlete in question must also juggle homework and exams on top of four to five-hour practices. With the London Summer Olympics now in full swing, we take a look at 10 of the youngest Olympic champions of all time. 

He Kexin
Depending on who you ask, Chinese gymnast He Kexin (pictured above) was either 14 or 16 when she competed at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Though the Chinese Olympic Committee listed her age as 16, some records suggested that she might have been under the age of eligibility. However, He and her teammates were cleared after an investigation by the International Federation of Gymnastics (IFG). She went on to win a gold medal on the uneven bars after a controversial tiebreaker with American gymnast Nastia Liukin. Stay tuned; He will be competing again this year at the London Olympics.

Ruta Meilutyte
One of the early breakout moments of this year’s Olympics was 15-year-old Lithuanian swimmer Ruta Meilutyte surging ahead of the pack to win the 100m breaststroke. This was her country’s first-ever Olympic gold, snatched from the US’ Rebecca Soni with just 0.08 seconds’ advance. Meilutyte, who moved to the UK three years ago with her father, also broke the European record in the heats – beating her personal best by two seconds. Look out for her in the swimming finals!

Barbara Pearl Jones
At age 15, Barbara Pearl Jones (later Slater) represented the US at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics in the 4 x 100m relay event with her teammates Mae Faggs, Janet Moreau, and Catherine Hardy. Faggs marshaled Team USA into taking gold despite having never worked together before, making Jones the youngest female Olympic gold medalist in track and field. She would repeat the feat at the 1960 Olympics in Rome before retiring; Jones now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fu Mingxia
In July of 1992, a Chinese schoolgirl still shy of her fourteenth birthday shocked diving fans by capturing the gold medal in women’s platform diving. Hubei native Fu Mingxia’s closest competitor, Elena Microchina, lagged nearly 50 points behind. As The LA Times‘ Mike Penner noted, “Fu could have cannonballed her last dive and no one would have touched her.” At the ripe old age of 17, she retired to enroll at Tsinghua University, then returned to the pool to claim four more Olympic medals (three gold, one silver) before hanging up her swimsuit for good. 

Dimitrios Loundras
If you don’t count the anonymous coxswains (the guys who are in charge of steering a boat) who were at the 1900 Olympics, Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras is the youngest documented medalist and competitor in Olympic history at 10 years and 218 days. He won a bronze medal on home soil in the team parallel bars at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. According to his Wikipedia page, Loundras went on to fight in both world wars and reached the rank of admiral in the Greek navy. Way to overachieve, Dimitrios.

For athletes 6-10, check out “10 Olympic Champions Under 16, Part 2.”

Photos (in order of appearance): China Daily, Robertas Dačkus, History.com, 163.com, Bleach Report