Former athletes building new lives

The normal story goes like this: Athletes grow up in the State-run sports system and the very few at the top win Olympic gold medals, becoming national heroes. After retirement, most of the champions become officials in local or central governmental bodies, mostly in sports sectors.

From 1984 - the year China sent its first Olympic squad since 1949 - until the 2012 London Olympics, 222 Chinese athletes have won gold medals in eight Summer Olympics and four Winter Games. About 60 percent of them chose political career paths after retirement and the rest went on to become coaches in the local or national sports team or teachers in universities.

To name a few, Wang Nan, a four-time female Olympic table tennis gold-medalist, then 30, retired after the Beijing Olympics and became a department-level cadre in the Communist Youth League.

Meanwhile, Yang Wei, a three-time Olympic gymnastics champion who also retired after the 2008 Games, is now the vice-director of the gymnastics department of the provincial sports bureau in his home Hubei province, a more common route for elite Chinese athletes.

But the norm is slowly breaking. More retired athletes have opted to start their own businesses thanks to the booming sports industry in China.

According to the General Administration of Sport, the added value of the sports industry accounted for only 0.56 percent of gross domestic product in 2013. In comparison, the figure was about 3 percent in the US the same year.

However, it is growing quickly thanks to favorable policies from the central government and the rising health awareness of an expanding middle class. As an indicator of the boom, more than 30 of the Chinese A-share listed companies are investing in the sports industry.

The sports authority estimates that the scale of the sports industry in China will be about 3 trillion yuan ($ 449 billion) by 2020, accounting for 1 percent of GDP.

Sports stars shine in business