China

Below and on the following pages are some of the 17,000 sports-school athletes who are training to represent China in these or future Games.

America's new set of Olympians, nearly 600 strong, hails from 47 of the 50 states and includes identical twins, soldiers, teenagers, a cancer patient, a 58-year-old CEO and the daughter of a Super Bowl champion

Separated from the West by barriers of language and culture, China's Olympians are often viewed as sports automatons. But they're far from faceless, and they're not their nation's only jocks

Hoping to stage a dazzling, dissent-free spectacle, China has carefully planned—and tried to control—every aspect of the Beijing Games. Anyone looking to spoil the event will have to reckon with 1.3 billion proud Chinese

More than 4,000 baby boys and girls in China have been named Aoyun, the Chinese word for Olympic Games.