Chinese runner Wang Junxia, the 3,000 and 5,000 metres world champion and 5,000 metres Olympic gold medallist and major rival of Sonia O'Sullivan is currently involved in a $1.2 million lawsuit. The athlete is demanding damages from a cigarette company who thought it would be a good idea to use her image as a worldclass runner to sell smoking to the Chinese public.

The problem was that Wang didn't agree to the advertisement, nor indeed knew anything about it until she saw the full page advertisement in Hong Kong's Ta Kung Po newspaper. A spokesman for the Yunnan Kunming cigarette factory said that they did not know Wang's photo was used in the ad, which was produced by an advertising agency in 1996.