Chinese rural teacher to carry London Olympic torch

Wu Xingfen, a 26-year-old female teacher from East China's Jiangsu province, will carry the London Olympic torch on July 14 in Lymington, the United Kingdom, according to the official website of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.

The committee on March 19 announced the name list of 7,300 torch bearers for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Wu Xingfen, a female teacher in Gaoyou city in Jiangsu province, was selected by the review panel after an interview and Internet poll. Nominated by Samsung Group, Wu was approved by the London committee as one of the 10 torchbearers from the Chinese mainland.

The Olympic Games torch relay is to start on May 18 from Olympia in Greece, and end in the UK 70 days later. Each torchbearer will carry the torch and run about 300 meters, out of the total 8,000 miles.

Born in 1986, Wu Xingfen gave up her stable job as a teacher and returned to the rural areas in Gaoyou city of northern Jiangsu province after graduation from Yangzhou Education College four years ago.

She started a community study center on her own expense to provide services such as compulsory study aid and book reading for the unattended rural children(who stay at home in rural areas while their parents work in urban cities), and named the center as the "home for unattended children". For the last three years, over a hundred of children have benefitted from this center. Wu was also hailed as a "guardian angel for unattended rural children".

Wu was also a torchbearer for the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games and the 2011 Shenzhen Universiade.