Cheng Fei

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Medal record
Gymnastics
World Championships
Gold	2005 Melbourne	Vault
Gold	2006 Aarhus	Team competition
Gold	2006 Aarhus	Vault
Gold	2006 Aarhus	Floor
Gold	2007 Stuttgart	Vault
Silver	2007 Stuttgart	Team competition

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Cheng.

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Cheng Fei (simplified Chinese: 程菲) is a Chinese gymnast, born on May 28, 1988 in Huangshi, Hubei Province. She is China's most decorated female gymnast. She is the 2006 World Champion on both the vault and the floor-exercise. She is also the 2005 World Champion on the vault.

[edit] Biography

She began gymnastics at the age of three, and by the age of ten, she was invited to join the Hubei provincial team. In late 2001, when she was thirteen, she was accepted to the National Team. Her coaches are Lu Shanzhen and Liu Qun Lin.

Cheng Fei is a floor Exercise and vault specialist. Cheng Fei has had a lot of national success in gymnastics: she is a two-time Chinese national floor exercise champion (2004-2005), a two-time Chinese national vault medalist(2003,2005)and the 2004 Chinese national balance beam Champion. Cheng Fei is also the 2004 World Cup Final bronze medalist on floor exercise. She finished fourth in the 2004 Olympic floor finals, with a score that attracted boos from the crowd because they thought it was too low. This occurred on the same evening that the low score given to Alexei Nemov caused a protest from the crowd.

Cheng also made history at the 2005 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships for being the first gymnast ever to land a laid out Khorkina: a round-off, half-turn onto the vault, then a 540-degree twist in the laid out position. This vault is one of the most difficult vaults ever attempted by a female gymnast. It is now officially named, "The Cheng".

As well as her specialities, Cheng wishes to become an all-around gymnast (she has never competed on bars at a major international before and fell from the balance beam in the 2005 American Cup). Her second place finish overall at the 2005 National Games illustrates her potential there, but it will be a challenge to maintain her standards on vault and floor while improving her beam and bars routines.

At the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus, she competed on vault and floor exercise, qualifying in first position for both event finals. She was also instrumental in helping the Chinese team to the Gold Medal in the team final. On the final days of the championships, she went on to clinch both the vault and floor gold with outstanding performances. On vault she was particularly dominant. She has now won more world golds than any other Chinese female gymnast in history.

Cheng ended the year with the World Cup Finals in São Paulo. She won gold on vault but, visibly tired on floor, she fell on her first pass, a double double. This drew some applause from the crowd, as it left the way clear for hometown favorite and defending champion Daiane Dos Santos to take gold.

She started off the 2007 competition year with golds on vault, beam and floor at the Maribor World Cup event.

Her long term goal is to compete at the 2008 Olympic Games which will be held in Beijing, China.