The Olympic journey for Li and Chen took flight in Los Angeles in 1984, the first time China sent a team to the Games. Worried that China would join a Soviet-led boycott, Peter Ueberroth, the president of organizing committee for the Los Angeles Olympics, sent Charles C. Lee, who speaks fluent Mandarin, to persuade China to attend.  When China agreed, Lee then served as the delegation’s host. He befriended the gymnasts, and when Chen and a few of the other women asked to meet some American children, he took them home to see his daughters.  The Beijing Games gave Lee, now the chef de mission for the United States team, a chance to reunite with those gymnasts, including Chen and Zhou Qiurui, Ma Yanhong and Huang Qun.  As the hugs and picture-taking followed, Li arrived to swap stories about his triumphant opening ceremony moment and his memories of the ’84 Games.  “Los Angeles brought us a lot of happiness,” Li said. “It was a great change in my life.”  Li, 44, and Chen, 45, have known each other since they were 9, when they were training with the Guangxi Province gymnastics team. They later came to Beijing to train with the national team. After she retired, Chen ran a gymnastics academy for several years in Los Angeles.  Their first trip out of China was in 1983, when they competed in the world championships in Budapest. But the Los Angeles Olympics were a revelation, a rare look at the outside world.  The Chinese gymnasts who went to Lee’s home at those Olympics were captivated by Lee’s daughters Alice and Dabney, then 4 and 2.  “To us, the girls were like dolls, so we played with their hair,” Zhou said, laughing. “We rarely had the chance to see any foreigners.”  That day, Lee took a picture of the gymnasts holding his children. When the gymnasts arrived Wednesday at a hotel suite for the reunion, Chen exclaimed, “Which one was I holding?”  They passed the old photograph around with smiles and laughter. They were joined by the Lees’ third daughter, Annie; Lee’s wife, Miranda, was pregnant with her in 1984.  The Lee daughters did not remember much of their meeting with the Chinese gymnasts, but the gymnasts remembered it vividly.  “We were too young to know the future,” Zhou said. “But the Olympics brought us a lot of insight. It opened up a different world for us.”  Lee had been their bridge to that world. They all remembered him, their friendly host wearing the bright blue blazer that was the United States delegation’s uniform. Lee, a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles County, had volunteered to help at those Games and Ueberroth leaned on him because of his then-rare language skill in Chinese.  Now, 24 years after those pivotal Los Angeles Games, the Beijing Olympics mark China’s reciprocal opening up to the world. Li says he believes they will prove to be as meaningful to the Chinese people as the 1984 Olympics were to him.  “First, it helps the education level of the Chinese people to know about the Olympics,” Li said. “Second, to organize the Olympic Games is to work within a system of rules. You have to act within a big structure of rules, international rules, and it is very good for the Chinese people to be able to do this.”  In its proudest moment at the opening ceremony, the country turned to find Li being hoisted to the top of the National Stadium, a moment that instantly became iconic. Li is China’s biggest sports star, its most decorated Olympian.  But to the son of Li and Chen, his star parents are just his parents. Chen said he had tried gymnastics for a few months but did not like the leotard. He took Chen’s medal to school once for show and tell, but Li said his son saved his reverence for China’s current gold-medal-winning gymnasts.  “His idol is Li Xiaopeng,” Li said, laughing.  Li is also the founder and chief executive of China’s biggest sports apparel and footwear company, Li Ning Company Ltd. Its company motto is: Anything Is Possible.  He proved that at the opening ceremony, fear of heights and all.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Recalling the Spark That Led to the Flame. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Li Ning and Chen Yong Yan are China’s sporting royalty and they trace their roots to 1984, when Li won six Olympic medals.