[1] The next year she started training with the national team under the supervision of Ma Wenhui and moved up to the 69 kilo weight class in which she won the junior world championships 2003 with 105+140 kg performance.

[4] At the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships she won the gold medal again in the same category, with a total of 286 kg.

[citation needed] In the 2009 weightlifting world championships she wasn't able to sustain her supremacy over the 75 kilo weight class as Svetlana Podobedova of Kazakhstan swept three gold medals, Cao took silvers in all three disciplines.

[6] Later that year she represented her country in East Asian Games taking gold with routine performance of 252 kg total.

[8] However, on 12 January 2017, it was announced that because of a doping violation she had been retroactively disqualified from the 2008 Olympic Games and was therefore stripped of her gold medal and her records annulled.