Chinese skater Wu Dajing celebrates winning gold in the men's 500-meter short-track speed skating at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea on February 22, 2018. Photo: VCG

The sporting world was very different on October 1, 1949. As the People's Republic of China came into being, the National Basketball Association (NBA), for example, was little over 2 months old.

It was August that year when the Basketball Association of America (BAA) - which saw the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Washington Capitols to win the Finals - merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) - won by the Anderson Packers over the Oshkosh All-Stars - and renamed itself the NBA.

In New York, baseball's World Series was won by the New York Yankees over the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that like many of their NBA counterparts has long been confined to history after moving across the country.

Golfer Sam Snead was in the middle of his four decades of greatness on the greens, winning the Masters and the PGA Championship on his way to being the highest earner on tour and the 1949 PGA Golfer of the Year.

Football, meanwhile was reeling from the Superga air disaster that decimated Italian side Torino. The club's plane crashed into a mountain near the Turin airport and 31 people - 27 passengers and four crew - lost their lives. They included all of the club's active first-teamers, which made up a large portion of the Italian national side.

Italy were the reigning World Cup holders at the time, having lifted the trophy when it was last played in 1938. The World Cup would not be played again until 1950 but there would be no team from the PRC present in Brazil.

China continued their membership of FIFA until 1958, following their failure to qualify for the World Cup in Sweden. They would not rejoin the game's governing body until 1979 and they have famously only ever appeared at one men's World Cup since.

That came in 2002 - and resulted in losses to Brazil, Turkey and Costa Rica at the tournament in Japan and South Korea - but Marcello Lippi's side are aiming for their second finals appearance at Qatar 2022 with qualifying already underway for that next tournament.

Steel Roses

Men's international football at the highest level has largely missed out on Chinese footballers, and certainly post 1949, but the women have made their mark on the world game.

China held the first FIFA Women's World Cup in 1991 and reached the quarterfinals on home soil. They have appeared at every quadrennial tournament since, reaching the semifinals in 1995 and coming within a spot kick of becoming world champions in 1999. The Steel Roses lost to the US ­Women's National Team in a penalty shootout in the final in Pasadena.

While the men's team have largely been a disappointment to football fans, the women have finished in the quarterfinals at every World Cup ­until this summer in France when they went out in the round of 16.

Olympic feat

Much like the global football party, China did not join the IOC until 1979 but they have made up for lost time since in what is inarguably the arena of the nation's greatest sporting successes. Xu Haifeng won China's first medal and also their first gold in the shooting in Los Angeles in 1984 - and China has never looked back.

The Summer Games in LA also heralded China''s arrival on the volleyball court with the women's team, led by current coach Lang Ping, winning gold. They whitewashed the hosts in the final, winning 3-0. This was the team that had won the World Championships in Lima, Peru, two years earlier and they lived up to their billing at the country's first Olympics.

China's arrival at the Olympics actually came in 1980 at the Winter Games in Lake Placid, USA, but the 24-athlete delegation did not result in a medal of any color. It would not be until the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, that China would finish a Games on the medal table - winning three silvers overall.

That total was matched in Lillehammer two years later when the Winter Games broke from the same cycle as the Summer Games and it represents the worst return on medals since. Speed skater Ye Qiaobo won the first-ever medal in 1992, with the first gold also coming in speed skating - Yang Yang winning the short-track event in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

The highlight was Vancouver in 2010 as a total of 11 medals featured five golds for Chinese athletes, before nine medals in both Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018.  The next Games will be in Beijing in 2022 and marks China's first time to host the Winter Olympics.

If Beijing 2008 is anything to go by then China will expect to top the medal table come the closing ceremony. The nation's first Summer Games was also the first time that China sat atop the medals, with a total of 100 made up of 48 golds, 22 silver and 30 bronze. While those golds did not include a win for Liu Xiang in the 110-meter hurdles, the star's victory in Athens in 2004 was the country's first gold in track and field.

Other notable medal landmarks include Li Ning, the gymnast who won the country's 10th gold medal in 1984 and also lit the Games flame in 2008, and table tennis pair Deng Ya­ping (who won China's 50th gold medal at Atlanta in 1996) and Zhang Yining (the 100th gold medal, coming at Athens 2004).

China's 200th gold medal at the Summer Games was won by Chen Ruolin at London 2012, the diver signaling China's dominance in the pool both from the boards and in the water. Star of all that has been Sun Yang, the swimmer who has won Olympic and World Championship gold at every freestyle distance from 200to 1,500 meters - the only male swimmer in history to do so.

Sun shining in the pool has been matched by Li Na on the tennis court, Yao Ming in the NBA and Ding Junhui in snooker.

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