When Sun Yang grabbed two gold medals in men's swimming in London, he excited not only the big brands that had signed him up but also an army of online entrepreneurs who are borrowing his sudden fame to make money.

Typing the swimmer's name into the search engine of Taobao, a major online shopping platform in China, hundreds of results pop up, hawking the swimmer's "favorite" snacks, furniture, shoes and even vintage designer bags.

"Sun Yang is one of the hottest names these days and he generated a lot of hits on the Web links of products that contain his name," said a Taobao shop owner who only gave her name as Bao. She claimed the sauced duck tongue and green bean cakes in her virtual store are "favorite snacks of Sun", who also won a silver and a bronze in London.