Li Jiawei

The momentous occasion came 48 years after Tan Howe Liang won the country's first medal, a silver in weightlifting at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.

However, in the finals on 17 August, the team lost to China and earned a silver medal, marking the first time that Singapore had won an Olympic medal since the nation's independence in 1965.

Li Jiawei (born 9 August 1981) is a retired Chinese-born former Singaporean table tennis player, four-time Olympian and twice Olympic medalist.

She trained in Beijing's famous Shichahai Sports School with Olympic medalist Zhang Yining.

Li was born on 9 August 1981 in Beijing, People's Republic of China, only daughter of a government official and a housewife.

In 1990, Li was a student at the Beijing Shichahai Sports School.

In 1994, she entered the Beijing provincial team and her skills in table tennis were recognised by Singaporean talent scouts.

In 1995, she moved to Singapore and in the following year, she commenced her international career as a competitive table tennis player.

She became a Singapore citizen at the age of 18 years under the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme.

In 1996, she was invited to train in Singapore under the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme, only returning to China once a year to visit her parents.

She began representing Singapore internationally in competitive table tennis the following year.

At 18, she became a Singapore citizen.

Ranked 18th in the world in 2000, Li achieved gold medals in the women's team, women's doubles and mixed doubles events at the XVII Commonwealth Games held between 25 July and 4 August 2002 in Manchester, and was ranked eighth in November 2002.

She won the accolade of Sportswoman of the Year from the Singapore National Olympic Council five times in a row between 2002 and 2006, and received a Meritorious Award in 2007.

At the club competition level, Li played in the Chinese Table Tennis Super League.

The following year, in December 2003, Li was a member of the Singapore team which swept the top awards at the 23rd Southeast Asian Games in the women's team, women's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles.

She finished in fourth place in singles at both the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing at which she was an official flagbearer.

On 3 July 2004, Li took gold in the women's singles at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Pro Tour US Open in Chicago.

Subsequently, at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, she defeated the second-seeded China player Wang Nan but eventually finished in fourth place.

Li's highest world singles ranking was in December 2005, when she was placed third.

Li was also a key player for the Singaporean women's team and doubles, and mixed doubles events, having participated in three Olympics and achieving a medal for the latter two.

In 2005, she was second in the ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals, and gained silver medals for the women's singles and mixed doubles at the 23rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games held between 28 November and 4 December 2005 in Manila.

She was also the key player in the gold-winning women's team and women's doubles events.

In December 2005, she was ranked third in the world as a singles player.

She won an individual Singapore Youth Award in 2005 and was Her World magazine's Young Woman Achiever of 2005.

At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Li won gold for the women's team and women's doubles, and the silver medal for the women's singles and mixed doubles events.

Subsequently, she won the women's singles at the ITTF Pro Tour Russia Open.

She also achieved third place in the ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals and the Women's World Cup, which are two of the most prestigious and difficult competitions in the table tennis arena.

At the 15th Asian Games held from 29 November to 7 December 2006 in Doha, Qatar, she achieved three medals: a silver for the women's team event and two bronzes for the women's singles and mixed doubles.

The next year, she won gold in the singles at the ITTF Pro Tour Chinese Taipei Open in Taipei, and helped Singapore to the top spots in the women's team and mixed doubles events at the 2007 SEA Games in Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat), Thailand.

On 15 August 2008, the Singapore women's team composed of Li and her teammates Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu defeated South Korea 3–2 in the semifinals.

Li ended 2008 on a high, winning gold in the women's team event with Feng and Wang at the ITTF Pro Tour ERKE German Open in Berlin in November, and in the doubles with Sun Beibei at the ITTF Volkswagen Pro Tour Grand Finals in Macau in December 2008.

As at August 2008, Li was ranked sixth in the world.

In 2008, she represented Peking University club, and in 2010, she played for Beijing Holdings, a team including world champion Ding Ning.

Li represented Singapore for the third time in the Olympic Games at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

She was the flag-bearer for Team Singapore at the opening ceremony of the Games on 8 August, having requested the honour.

She explained: "There has been so much debate over the foreign talent scheme. This is my way of showing everyone that everything I've ever achieved is because of Singapore."

At the Beijing Olympics, on 13 August 2008, the Singapore women's table tennis team, coached by Liu Guodong and with Li as the team captain leading teammates Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu, beat teams from the United States and Nigeria with comfortable 3–0 wins.

Li won the women's team bronze medal with Feng and Wang at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Soon after, she announced her retirement from competitive sports on 27 December 2012.