Li Menghua

Li Menghua from Gaoyang in Hebei province and the other three Chinese boxers selected for participation at the 1936 Berlin Olympics were all soldiers in the army of General Shang Zhen, the sport enthusiastic commander-in-chief of the 32nd army corps and ruler of the Henan province. Early in 1936, they went to Shanghai to participate in the trials at the Shanghai Western Overseas Chinese Youth Association Gymnasium. There, Li Menghua was the most successful. Subsequently the Sports Association hired Australian coach Billy Tingle, who lived in China, to prepare them during a training camp in Shanghai. In Berlin, however, Jin Gui and Li Menghua could not compete due to fatigue and lack of physical strength. After returning from Europe, all four fought in the Sino-Japanese war and died in action. Li Menghua fought in the battle of Tai’erzhuang in Shandong province in 1938 but was severely wounded. His later fate is unknown but he did not survive the war. The fate of the four boxers was fictionalized in the 2018 movie “Chivalrous fists of steel” by director Gao Liqiang.