Chinese weightlifter Zhao Changling, who represented Kazakhstan at the London Olympics, has returned to her homeland and vowed to compete for China at the Rio 2016 Games.
Zhao, whose Kazak name is Zulfiya Chinshanlo, reacquired her Chinese nationality by getting a second-generation identification card in her hometown of Central China's Hunan province.
She will receive training in China from famous Chinese coach Zhou Jihong, who supervised London Olympic 48Kg champion Wang Mingjuan,after her five-year lease contract with Kazakhstan's weightlifting team expired last month.
Zhao is expected to represent Hunan at the upcoming Chinese National Games and will strive for the home glory representing China in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.
At the London 2012 Olympics Games, Zhao Changling beat Chinese athlete Zhu Jun and claimed women's 53Kg weightlifting gold medal for her "plastic country" Kazakhstan.
Zhao was born in the remote, mountainous Daoxian county within Yongzhou city in Central China's Hunan province in 1993.
She has been a registered athlete of Hunan weightlifting team since 2005 and had reached the national top eight level when she left China in 2007. She didn't start professional weightlifting training until her parents sent her to a special school in Yongzhou when she was 11.
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