(July 30, 2008)

Beijing Olympic Games is only ten days away. We can feel its real pulse.

We have come to San Francisco from Colorado on July 26, both to get accustomed to the normal altitude and to get closer to San Jose where we will get our Olympic attires soon before we leave for Beijing.

Lang Ping poses on the court before the training in San Francisco July 30, 2008. [sohu.com]

We have been going on with our drills in University of California Berkeley in the past few days. They have fine venues here and people are very hospitable.

Next Thursday, we will have a warm-up contest here, the last joint drill before we set out for Beijing.

We are scheduled to fly to Beijing next Friday, Aug. 1.

Introduction of Lang Ping

Lang Ping took up volleyball in her spare-time, at a sports school in the Beijing Workers Gymnasium in April 1973. She joined Beijing's Chenjinglun Middle School volleyball team a year later and then entered a volleyball training class in Beijing's No. 2 Spare-time Sports School before becoming a member of the Beijing youth volleyball team.

Lang was promoted to the Beijing municipal team, headed by Yuan Weimin, in 1976 and chosen by the national team towards the end of 1978. In the national team she played as a chief spiker and served successively as the team's deputy captain, captain and assistant coach. Lang steered the Chinese team to the first world title at the Third World Cup Volleyball Tournament in 1981, before they swept three more major world titles in the 1982 World Championships, 1984 Olympic Games and 1985 World Cup with four straight wins in five years.

She is now head coach of the US Womens Volleyball Team.