Personal Life
Li first met Singaporean badminton player and fellow Olympian Ronald Susilo in 2002 at a sports meet. They began dating after participating together in the Athens Olympics, and the "golden sports couple", as they were dubbed by the media, announced their engagement in September 2004. About two years later there were rumours that they were breaking up, but these were denied by them at the time. On 15 January 2008, when queried by a journalist, Susilo confirmed that he and Li had broken up amicably the previous week. Following a report in The Sunday Times that Susilo was contemplating legal action against her to recover money he claimed to have spent in buying their condominium apartment and car, Li disagreed that Susilo had a share in the apartment and implied he was trying to affect her mood and thus her chances of winning a medal at the Beijing Olympics. Susilo declined to discuss the matter with the press, saying it was a private matter between Li and himself; he wished her all the best for the Olympics. In October 2008 it was announced that Li and Susilo had settled their property dispute amicably. The terms of the settlement were confidential.
On 26 September 2008, Li registered a marriage in Beijing with Li Chao, a businessman based in that city; they were introduced by a mutual friend in March 2008. Sources quoted by The Straits Times said Li had long wanted her children to bear her surname. A lavish wedding banquet was held at the Beijing Hotel on 25 April 2009. In November 2008 Li said she wished to have two to three children before turning 35, though this would not affect her table tennis career. On 13 October 2009, she and her husband had their first child, a boy weighing 3.575 kilograms (7.88 lb). Her husband confirmed that they were "hoping for at least three kids, the more the merrier", and it was reported that Li would try for more children following the 2012 Summer Olympics. Li started training again in February 2010 and competed in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.
Read more about this topic: Li Jiawei
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Yet they that know all things but know
That all this life can give us is
A child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)