Five likely US competitors at next year's Beijing Olympics, three of Chinese heritage and another born in Vietnam, will travel to China next month for one-year-out festivities.

The US Olympic Committee goodwill delegation will include Gao Jun of table tennis, Howard Bach of badminton, archer Lindsay Pian, fencer Iris Zimmerman and cyclist Don Robinson.

Jun won a silver medal for China at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics but became a US citizen and represented the Americans at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics.

Gao, who studies economics at East China University in Shanghai, has spent 10 years on the US national team and ranks 16th in the world.

Pian, whose grandparents are from the Beijing-Tianjin area and whose father Robert is a first generation Chinese-American, is competing for the US squad at the Pan American Games in Brazil.

Pian's grandfather was a civil engineer who worked on the early stages of the Yangtze River Three Gorges dam project.

Zimmerman, whose mother is from China, was fourth in team foil and 11th in individual foil at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She had retired but returned when the team foil, dropped for the 2004 Games, was reinstated for China's Olympics.

Vietnamese-born Bach, who joined Tony Gunawan as 2005 world doubles champions, competed at the 2004 Olympics with ex-partner Kevin Han, reaching the round of 16. Bach's family moved to San Francisco when he was three.

Robinson competes in BMX cycling, which makes its debut at the Beijing Olympics.

(China Daily via AFP July 26, 2007)