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Earlier this year, we asked our online readers to let us know who they would pick for our annual Asian Heroes special. It could be anybody, we said: A pop idol, a great humanitarian, a world leader or even just someone who made their own small corner of the world a better place. The results were overwhelming. Over a period of six weeks, more than 10,000 people wrote in to nominate their own personal heroes.

From this list, TIME's editors whittled down the nominees to 20 people who best represented the courage, charisma and genius that inspires us. In alphabetical order, they were:

Wasim Akram: Veteran Pakistan cricket bowler
Corazon Aquino: The Philippines' post-Marcos savior
Amitabh Bachchan: Bollywood superstar
Kalpana Chawla: India-born astronaut and Columbia shuttle victim
David Dawe: International Rice Research Institute scientist
Abdul Sattar Edhi: Pakistani humanitarian
Gao Xingjian: Chinese author and Nobel laureate
Korea's 2002 World Cup Football team: The inspiration of a nation
Lee Kwan Yew: Singapore's founding father
Mahathir Mohamad: Malaysian Prime Minister
The man who blocked the Chinese tanks at Tiananmen: An unknown icon
Hideki Matsui: Japan's baseball 'Godzilla'
Hayao Miyazaki: Japan's Oscar-winning animation pioneer
Narayana Murthy: Indian IT entrepreneur
Munir S.H.: Indonesian victims' rights campaigner
Pervez Musharraf: Pakistan President
I Made Pastika: Bali bombings investigator
Lea Salonga: Filipina broadway diva
Yao Ming: Chinese basketball star
Zhu Rongji: China's anti-corruption crusader

Over the past few weeks, we asked readers to choose from among these finalists. And now the results are in. Click here to see who this year's Asian Online Hero is...

	View all of TIME's Asian Heroes covers Reader's Choice: TIME's Online Asian Hero The Results are in! Find out who you said was the most inspirational person or persons of 2002 How well do you know your heroes? Take our quiz and find out!