Career
Xie is only the second woman to have two reigns, the other being Elisabeth Bykova. Xie June is married to her former coach General Motors Wu Shaobin. At the urging of government authorities, she soon began playing international chess.
In 1988 she tied for second–fourth places at the World Junior Girls" Championship in Adelaide.
She lost the title to Susan Polgar of Hungary in 1996 (8½–4½) but regained the title in 1999 by defeating another championship finalist, Alisa Galliamova (8½–6½), after Polgar refused to accept match conditions and forfeited her title. In Guangzhou in April 2000, Women"s Champion Xie played a match with former World Champion Anatoly Karpov.
Billed as a "female versus male chess contest", the match consisted of four games at normal time controls and two rapid games. A hero in China, Xie became widely known for her optimism and vivid attacking style.
Her success did much to popularize international chess in her country and the rest of Asia.
Xie June proved to be the first of a number of strong Chinese women players, the others being Zhu Chen, Xu Yuhua, and Wang Lei. She was also an important factor in the Chinese women"s team winning the gold medal at the 1998 Chess Olympiad in Elista in Kalmykia, Russia. Among women, Xie has been the number 2 or number 3 highest rated woman for much of her career.
Around the end of the 1990s, Xie was reading for a doctorate in psychology at Beijing Normal University.
Xie June now spends most of her present time working as an official at the Beijing Sports Commission, taking care of chess players and other sports people. In July 2004, she gained the titles of International Arbiter and FIDE Senior Trainer.