Thanks for sharing, nitesh, it's an interesting article, even I was not aware that the diving queen Guojingjing came from Baoding,Hebei.
I also noticed the sex ratio in China's medal board, it indeed slops to female athletes to some extent (e.g. gold 21:27,silver 7:10 and bronze 7:19) ,which is mainly because of the history of China's sports development. football for example, China's male team sucks a lot not only due the late start comparing to western counterparts, but the female team was formed in the same pace with world and they are still in top 8. while China's basketball started simultaneously for man and woman, now male in world's top 8 and female top 4. anyway, Chinese men will likely continue their embarrassment for years to come.
btw, the author feels surprised seeing so many gold medals captured by Chinese unknowns. he might have been be unmindful to sports like badminton,table tennis,shooting,weight lifting,and diving...etc.., like most non-sports enthusiasts he might not know that Lindan (Superdan, also widely known as badboy) is not only the 4 years dominator in badminton court but also a frequent figure in sports evens in world's mainstream media.
Yao and Liuxiang are obviously the biggest sports stars who get international fame, but when we talk about olympic medals, they're not the reliant guarantee.