But the anthem that played for the first Taiwanese athlete to ever win gold -- she won gold at the 2004 Olympics in the lightweight taekwondo competition -- was not the one Chen heard growing up, nor was the flag in front of her the red and blue of Taiwan.
Instead, Chen stood under the white banner of "Chinese Taipei," a nation that does not exist, the result of a political compromise stemming from divisions that have existed since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
