Zhao Changjun

Zhao Changjun (; born October 25, 1960) is a retired professional wushu taolu athlete from China. He is regarded as one of the greatest wushu athletes of all time. In wushu circles, it is commonly said the 1970s belonged to Jet Li, the 1980s to Zhao Changjun, and the 1990s to Yuan Wenqing.

Early life Zhao was born in October 1960 to a poor Hui family in Xi'an, Shaanxi. He started practicing wushu at the age of six, studying with Yuan Runsheng and learning various traditional styles. He briefly had to stop training because of the Cultural Revolution where martial arts instructors were often purged. In 1970, he resumed training and was accepted into the Shaanxi provincial wushu team to train under Bai Wenxiang, then later Yu Baiwen and Ma Zhenbang.

Career

Competitive career In 1972, Zhao met Jet Li for the first time in national competition. The judges, not favoring to distinguish between both athletes, gave both of them an "Excellent Performance Award." In 1974, Zhao was considered for the 1974 China national wushu team tour to the United States but was rejected because his specialty styles, zuiquan and houquan, were looked down upon, as they were not favorable styles which represented Chinese people. As a result, Zhao worked with his coaches to develop the modernized version of ditangquan, which carries the acrobatics and athleticism of zuiquan and houquan. Despite this, he was able to travel to Japan to perform.

During the mid 1970s, Zhao would be overshadowed by the success of Jet Li, who would eventually retire after the 4th National Games of China in 1979. Starting in 1978, Zhao would gold medals at every national championships and from 1980 to 1988, he won the all-around national championship title for eight years in a row. At the National Games of China, he won seven gold medals scattered across four renditions.

Starting in 1984, Zhao was appointed as a deputy director of the Shaanxi Sports Technical College and become a coach of the Shaanxi Wushu Team.

In May 1985 when Muhammad Ali visited China, Zhao had the opportunity to meet him and engage in light sparring.

In 1985, the first International Invitational Wushu Championships were held in Xi'an, and Zhao won three gold medals as well as the all-around title. After the competition, he was approached by Bow-sim Mark from the United States, and accepted her plea to let him teach her son, Donnie Yen, for a year. In 1987, the Wushu Federation of Asia (WFA) was formed and at the first Asian Wushu Championships in Yokohama, Japan, Zhao won the men's all-around title, becoming the first official Asian wushu champion. After this success, he retired from competitive wushu. He proceeded to teach at the Shaanxi Sports Technical College and became the head coach of the Shaanxi Wushu Team.

Acting career Following the success of Shaolin Temple (1982) which starred Jet Li, a martial arts movie titled Wudang (1983) was released which starred Zhao. The film was poorly received due to its writing and was pulled out of shelves after eight days in 1984. In 2020, he returned to China and assumed the position as a distinguished professor and head of the wushu department at the Xi'an International Studies University.