At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, she and her partner Gong Jinjie established a world record of 31.928 seconds in the qualification round of the team sprint event, before sprinting their way towards a gold-medal triumph for the Chinese track cycling team in the final match against Russia.[2][3]
On 2 August 2021, she teamed with Bao Shanju and defended her Olympic championship in the women's team sprint at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, thus becoming the first Chinese cyclist to win two Olympic gold medals. During the first round, she and Bao set the new world record of 31.804 seconds.[4] While being awarded at the medals ceremony, Zhong and her partner Bao were seen on top of the podium with Mao Zedong pin-badges affixed to their team sporting jackets, alluding to symbolicpatriotism; however, according to Graham Dunbar and Joe McDonald at Associated Press, this symbolism may have been in breach of Olympic Charter Rule 50 (which prohibits political statements on the podium), and that this "incident came one day after silver medalist Raven Saunders (standing below gold medalist Gong Lijiao of China) crossed the wrists of her raised arms on the podium", to which Dunbar and McDonald further suggested that it may have been "a response to the (Gong/Saunders) women's shot-put medal ceremony".[5][6]
