Editor’s Note: Meet Junling Cui, our exclusive wOw Woman on the scene in Beijing. For the Olympics, wowOwow goes right to the source for an insider’s perspective on the news coming out of Beijing. Junling will be reporting from both the women’s perspective and from the point of view of a Chinese national, on all things Olympics — from the athletes’ stories to the social impact of the Games.

With the completion of tonight’s closing ceremonies — casually festive compared to the Zhang Zimou extravaganza that opened things 16 days ago — the Games of Beijing are officially closed. We Beijingers are, it’s true, having a bit of a Robert Redford (in the film “The Candidate”) moment, in the sense that we’re all kind of wondering, OK, that’s over with; what do we do now?

But before having to contemplate getting on with things, I canvassed a bunch of my friends over the last three or four days to ask them which female athletes they were most impressed with during the games.

When I asked that question, I didn’t mean impressed with their physical prowess, by which woman won the most gold; I meant which woman impressed you the most as a person, from what you could learn, either from the media, or in direct encounters (since several of my friends are journalists). I would say a consensus revolved around three — none of whom are Chinese. So on this list we’ll award gold, silver, and bronze, for the female athletes who impressed us the most:

The gold goes to Natalie Du Toit. The 24-year-old South African swimmer had half of her left leg amputated after an accident seven years ago. My friends were stunned when they saw the widespread media coverage of her in China. You figure she’d be in the Special Olympics, one of my friends said.

Nope. She’s an open-water swimmer, and she swims without a prosthetic. She says the strength in her arms makes up for whatever she might lack in kicking ability. Like some other Asian countries — though we have tremendous sympathy for people with disabilities — China’s been a bit slow in integrating them into the mainstream of our society. (The main reason for that is that we are still a relatively poor country). That’s part of the reason Natalie made such an impact: an absolute, cross-cultural inspiration to tens of millions of Chinese who watched these Games.

The silver goes to Robina Muqimyar. She’s a 17-year-old sprinter from Afghanistan. CCTV, the state-owned TV network that I used to work for, did a big piece on this athlete — and it had a huge impact in China. First off, her coach didn’t even want Robina to do the interview, because he thought it would be too dangerous for her. “Even today,” Robina explained later, “women should not be seen in public, running or training.” But her coach relented when Robina insisted.

There was supposed to be another Afghan woman to run in the sprints in these games, but just before they began, she disappeared in Afghanistan. She had received death threats from Islamic fundamentalists, and went into hiding. Even her coach didn’t know where she went or what had become of her.

Robina stepped in as a replacement. She didn’t back down. “I know it’s dangerous for a woman to run in public, to compete, and I don’t know whether when I go back whether there will be more people for me or more people against me for what I did. But even if just 20 percent support me, that’s good enough.”

Her support level in China was much bigger than that. Her courage and her dignity — running in a headscarf and long pants — impressed more than 20 percent of the Chinese she came in contact with over the past two weeks. More like 99.9 percent here — particularly the teenage girls who I spoke with who had seen her story on CCTV.

The bronze goes to Dana Abdul Razzaq, another sprinter. Twenty-one-years-old, this one is from Iraq.

No one in China knew her name. She became known by one phrase in Chinese, a phrase that translates to “the secondhand shoe runner.” Dana Razzaq’s story became famous in the USA, because she had trained while her country was at war, she and her coach ducking once under sniper fire, she said in an interview. She ran well in her qualifying heat — a personal best in the 100 meters — and was thrilled with the experience. “The best thing in my life so far,” she said. But what amazed — and confused — so many Chinese was the fact that she had to run in a beat-up pair of sneakers that apparently had a tear in them.