24 November 2025 - Volleyball coach Lang Ping from China and wrestling coach Raúl de Jesús Trujillo Díaz from Cuba today received the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Coaches Lifetime Achievement Award from IOC President Kirsty Coventry and Sergii Bubka, Chair of the IOC Athletes’ Entourage Commission, during a ceremony at Olympic House, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Key facts
- Lang Ping and Raúl de Jesús Trujillo Díaz have been announced as the winners of the IOC Coaches Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2025.
- Trujillo Díaz is an icon in Greco-Roman wrestling whose athletes include the legendary Mijaín López Ruíz – a five-time Olympic champion.
- Lang is the first person to win Olympic volleyball gold as both a player and coach. Her coaching career spans China, the USA and Italy.
Both coaches have helped countless athletes to reach the pinnacles of their sports, winning dozens of medals in the process across several editions of the Olympic Games.
"It's really special to be here with all of you and to celebrate our two coaches for their incredible commitment and their lifetime of work in serving their athletes to become the best athlete, but also the best humans that they can be," said IOC President Kirsty Coventry during the ceremony. "So many of us who compete in sport know and understand that the lessons that we learn in sport will guide us in our everyday life after and this is where the role of coaches is so important", she added.
Congratulating the two winners, she continued: "Thank you for your commitment to your sports, to your athletes and their well-being for generations to come, because I know that, if I look at my coach, I will hopefully instil a lot of the lessons that she's taught me in my children. I can say that many of your athletes will do the same with their children, their friends and their family."
Sergii Bubka, Chair of the IOC Athletes’ Entourage Commission, that oversaw the selection of the coaches, added: “This year we received a record number of 152 nominations from the Olympic Movement, and we are once again delighted to celebrate the achievements of two remarkable coaches. Lang Ping and Raúl de Jesús Trujillo Díaz have not only served their sports with great distinction, they have also made a profound impact beyond sport on their respective communities. Both are hugely deserving of this special honour.”
Raúl de Jesús Trujillo Díaz: A life in wrestling
Cuba is one of the leading nations in the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling – and Trujillo Díaz has been one of the key figures in their inexorable rise.
He lives and breathes wrestling, with more than 52 years of coaching experience. He coached the Cuban and Portuguese national teams across five editions of the Olympic Games.
“I am very honoured to receive this extraordinary recognition. I would like to thank the IOC, all the athletes I have coached over the past 50 years, the other wrestling coaches and people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes in the sport to which I have dedicated my life. All were my motivation and example. I also want to take the opportunity to thank United World Wrestling (UWW). And a big thank-you to someone very special who has always been with me – my family – for their great support.”
The athletes under Trujillo Díaz’s charge have won countless medals. They include Ismael Borrero, who won 59kg gold at Rio 2016; Luis Orta, the 60kg champion at Tokyo 2020; and the legendary super-heavyweight Mijaín López Ruíz, who at Paris 2024 became the first athlete in any sport to win five consecutive Olympic gold medals in the same event.
As well as introducing training innovations that have helped lead his nation to success, Trujillo Díaz has published numerous research papers and articles on wrestling science and pedagogy. He has also worked widely for United World Wrestling across Latin America as an educator, bringing the breadth of his knowledge and experience to new generations of athletes and coaches.
Lang Ping: A Chinese sporting icon
Lang’s journey in sport began as an athlete in the early 1980s. Nicknamed “The Iron Hammer” for her fierce spiking at the net, she won an historic gold medal at the Olympic Games Los Angeles 1984 with China’s women’s team.
Lang took her first coaching role in 1987, and she coached the Chinese women’s team to a surprise Olympic silver medal at Atlanta 1996.
Four years in charge of the USA women’s team brought more glory, including Olympic silver at Beijing 2008. But it was her second spell as China’s coach that cemented her place in history. When she guided China to the Olympic title at Rio 2016, Lang became the first athlete in history to win Olympic volleyball gold as both player and coach.
“This award is a great honour,” said Lang. “I am deeply grateful to the IOC and the FIVB [International Volleyball Federation] for recognising my coaching work. There are so many people to thank – from the brilliant teams and players I have coached in China, Italy and the USA, to the coaches and mentors who shaped me as a player and as a person from my earliest days in the sport. This recognition belongs to all of them.”
Lang’s achievements and recognition are an inspiration for female coaches, who remain strongly underrepresented among elite-level coaches. Making up just 13 per cent of accredited coaches at Paris 2024 and 10 per cent of accredited coaches at Beijing 2022, the IOC has implemented several initiatives to help bridge this gap, including the Women in Sport High-Performance Pathway (WISH). Supported by funding from Olympic Solidarity, 120 coaches from 22 sports and 59 countries have graduated from the programme so far.
The IOC has also recently published Good Practices to Encourage Women Coaches in International Federations (IFs), a collection of case studies highlighting successful initiatives implemented by IFs – many funded by Olympic Solidarity – to increase female representation among coaches.
About the IOC Coaches Lifetime Achievement Awards
The IOC Coaches Lifetime Achievement Awards, launched in 2017, as an initiative of the IOC Athletes’ Entourage commission led by its Chair, Sergii Bubka, aim to recognise coaches’ invaluable role in the development of athletes on and off the field of play. These Awards also aim to shine a light on the importance of the team behind every athlete, the athletes’ entourage members, whose guidance and support are essential to sporting success and personal growth.
The previous winners of the IOC Coaches Lifetime Achievement Awards are:
- 2024: Jane Figueiredo (Zimbabwe/Portugal, diving) and Vitaliy Petrov (Ukraine, athletics)
- 2023: Laura Martinel (Argentina, judo) and Taesuk Chang (Republic of Korea, fencing)
- 2022: Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi (France/Australia, canoe) and Malcolm Brown (Great Britain, triathlon)
- 2019: Ulla Koch (Germany, artistic gymnastics) and Malcolm Arnold (Great Britain, athletics)
- 2018: Katalin Rozsnyói (Hungary, canoeing) and Andreas Schmid (Austria, skeleton)
- 2017: Kaneko Masako (Japan, synchronised swimming) and Jon Urbanchek (USA, swimming)
(Note: there were no awards in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
