Happy New Year to all my readers and thanks for following, listening and reading throughout 2021. The 2022 Beijing Olympics begin exactly one month from today, and the Closed Loop Management System (aka the Olympic bubble) went into operation this morning.

This week on the China Sports Insider Podcast we spoke to Chinese Olympic sailing champion Xu Lijia, who won gold in the laser division at the 2012 Olympics in London, where she also carried the flag for China at the Closing Ceremony. She had some fascinating things to say about her career and about China’s state-run sports system in general. She was also pictured in Shanghai recently alongside Yao Ming, table tennis champ Wang Liqin, and people’s favorite Peng Shuai in what was clearly a staged photo shoot. I asked her about that and for her thoughts on Peng in what has become our most listened podcast so far! Full blurb below: