Ricky May, who teaches Tang and her NTO (National Technique Officer) classmates, said at first she was a bit of a hard case.

"Tang was a little formal when she joined the class for the first week (in early July), because she is used to being a little famous," he said.

May said his "bring-language-to-life" teaching style and encouragement for classroom participation have made Tang Lin and many of her nervous classmates no longer afraid to "lose a little face" in front of the entire class.

"Now she has become very cool and relaxed in the class, allowing herself to make some mistakes when speaking in English, which is the most important way to improve her language.

"She always tries to use new words and grammar."

Tang admits she has chilled out a little -- outside the judo arena at least.

"I'm not forcing myself to speak perfect English. I just want to get enough vocabulary and language proficiency to express my ideas explicitly to the other judges working with me," Tang said.

When speaking in Chinese, however, she comes across as a natural orator.

She attributes this to four years of studying at China's prestigious Renmin University of China, where she majored in administrative management.

"I always wanted to go to college," said Tang, who joined the university in 2001.

Tang was one of the lucky ones. In China, only Olympic gold medalists get recommended to study at a university after they end their sporting career.

Now she is working as an officer at the public relations department of Sichuan Sports Bureau. Her job is to find sponsors for the sports events held in her hometown.

Due to her high marketability in China, Tang's new career has already had a large measure of success in attracting considerable sponsorship.

Tang, at 1.74m and 78kg, is much bigger than the petite Chinese girls usually found in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

While her size and strength have made it that bit trickier to find her perfect match, she still considers herself fortunate to have this natural sporting advantage.

"When I was told judo was like wrestling, I immediately agreed to give it a go, saying 'Oh, it's like fighting, I can do that'," she said, recalling how she was recruited to the sport at the age of 13.

"I got a lot of exercise doing farm work at home," she said. "Plus, I grew up with a bunch of cousins and we used to fight a lot."

Of course, there came a time when those cousins stopped being so eager to fight her.

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