Nike Women

In 2012, working out wasn't something Chinese women did. Not yet.

The real barrier wasn't laziness — it was self-consciousness. Girls who loved their mirror and hated it at the same time. Who covered their faces with their hair. Who had learned to make themselves smaller.

We didn't write about fitness. We wrote about what happens when a girl stops hiding — when sweat and effort give her back her confidence she didn't know she'd lost.