Nicknamed the "Iron Hammer", She was also a member of the team that won the World Championship crown in 1982 in
Peru and won World Cup titles in 1981 and 1985 in Japan. She captained the 1985 World Cup team and was named the most valuable player of the tournament.
Legacy in China Owing to her central role in the success of the Chinese women's volleyball team in the 1980s, Lang was seen as a cultural icon and is one of the most respected people in modern Chinese sports history. Lang is remembered as one of the first world champions for China. Lang guided the team to the 2008 Olympics, where the US team faced off with China in her home country. The US team defeated China 3–2. Then Chinese and US presidents,
Hu Jintao and
George W. Bush, attended the match. The match drew 250 million television viewers in China alone. The team went on to win the silver medal, losing to Brazil in the finals 3–1. Lang allowed her contract to run out later that year, citing that she wanted to coach a club so as to spend more time with her family. She became the head coach of the
China women's national volleyball team for the second time in 2013 and won the World Cup in Japan in 2015. In 2014, she was the only female head coach among the 24 teams in the FIVB World Championship. On 21 August 2016, Lang Ping guided the Chinese national team to the gold medal at 2016 Rio Olympics. With this victory, Lang Ping became the first person in volleyball history, male or female, to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games as a player with the Chinese national team in Los Angeles 1984 and as the Chinese national team head coach in Rio 2016. On 29 September 2019, after
China swept all eleven matches to defend the World Cup title, Lang Ping also became the first person to win the back-to-back World Cup champions both as a player (1981, 1985) and as a coach (2015, 2019).
Coaching career ==Awards==