Former Olympic speed-skating champion Ye Qiaobo used to set the rink alight with her dazzling displays. Now she's more concerned with fire than ice.

Ye, a three-time Olympic medalist and a five-time torchbearer for the Games, is back in action as a consultant at the Torch Relay Center for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

After spending so much time guarding the sacred flame, Ye did not have to think hard when choosing a nickname for herself.

"The efforts we made working for the torch relay route are no less than what it took to actually compete," said the 42-year-old, who won China its first ever Winter Olympic medals in Albertville in 1992 by finishing second in both the women's 500 and 1,000 speed skating events.

After retiring in 1994 due to injury, Ye was selected as the torchbearer for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.

"During my 20 years as an athlete, my greatest ambition was to win competitions, but after I retired I had no chance to feel the honor of winning for my country," Ye recalled. "When I passed the Olympic flame at the Winter Games in 1998, I found I got that feeling back."

She was also appointed torchbearer in Turin last year and at three Asian Games.

"Olympic torchbearers should not be limited to officials or stars they can be but also regular people who have their own stories to tell," Ye said. "Their stories and experience can move everybody."

Ye's story is no less dramatic.

Picking up speed skating at the age of nine and joining the People's Liberation Army team three years later, Ye has a career filled with highlights.

At the 124 competitions she attended, she collected 133 medals, 50 of them gold. She was also the first Asian skater to win the overall speed-skating championship in the 1992-93 season.

The 1994 Lillehammer Games further highlighted her fighting spirit.

Despite having major knee surgery six months before the Games, Ye resumed normal training within weeks and earned bronze at the 1,000.

"That was my second Olympic Games and I expected too much," Ye said. "It was very risky having the operation so close to the Games but I insisted that I wanted to compete."

The Olympic gold medal that eluded her for two decades continues to haunt her in her retirement.

"My regret at losing out on the gold is always with me, as that was my lifetime ambition," she said, adding that this hole kept her hungry to achieve more after retiring her skates.

After studying for an MBA degree at Tsinghua University, one of China's most prestigious colleges, she set up the Qiaobo International Sports Club Co Ltd to help promote winter sports in China.

Now 'Miss Torch' is dedicating her energy to the torch relay route, something she said can be as exhausting as competing.

She juggles her time between her Olympic duties, her business and her Doctor degree studies at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

"I spent too much time on the ice before and not enough time building up my knowledge of the world," she said. "Now I want to learn more and I don't want to stop."