Thirteen years after a training accident left her paralyzed and ended her career as a world-class gymnast, China's Sang Lan has filed a lawsuit in the United States, one that threatens to tarnish her carefully maintained reputation for resilience at home.

The $1.8-billion suit targets everyone — from Ted Turner, who founded the Goodwill Games where the accident happened in 1998 in New York, to the former AOL Time Warner Inc. media company, which owned the games, to USA Gymnastics, which supported the event, to the couple who were her guardians in New York. It says they broke promises to care for Sang, then 17 and paralyzed from the chest down ever since.

The suit is an unexpected turn for Sang, whose sweet smile and upbeat nature earned her many supporters in China and who became a symbol of determination and courage in the face of a devastating injury. Returning home in 1999, she received a hero's welcome, with officials calling her "the pride of all Chinese." Since then, she has used her fame to advocate for the disabled.

Sang says her public image and the lawsuit are separate affairs, and she thinks it's more important to set the record straight about the circumstances surrounding her fall.

"At that time, people said that Sang Lan herself lost control and made the mistake that caused her to fall," Sang, now 29, said during an interview Wednesday in her two-bedroom apartment in northeast Beijing, where Beijing Olympics memorabilia decorate the shelves.

She says she fell because she was distracted by someone who moved a mat while she was in mid-air.