Jiang Yuyuan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Jiang Yuyuan doing floor exercise in Hong Kong |
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Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country represented | People's Republic of China | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | November 1, 1991 Liuzhou, Guangxi |
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Height | 148 centimetres (4 ft 10 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 32 kilograms (71 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Discipline | Women's artistic gymnastics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Level | Senior | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Club | National team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Head coach(es) | Xiong Jingbin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assistant coach(es) | Zhang Xia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Music | "Lift Your Veil" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Jiang Yuyuan (also Yuyan; simplified Chinese: 江钰源; traditional Chinese: 江鈺源; pinyin: Jiāng Yùyuán; born November 1, 1991 in Liuzhou, Guangxi) is a Chinese gymnast. She is the 2008 Chinese all-around senior National Champion[1] and a member of the gold medal-winning People's Republic of China team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Jiang was a member of the silver medal-winning Chinese team at the 2007 World Championships, the bronze medal-winning member at the 2010 World Championships and 2011 World Championships, and the all-around gold medalist at the 2007 Good Luck Beijing Olympic test event. In 2010, she replaced Cheng Fei as the captain of the Chinese national team (due to Fei's leg injury). She won silver medal in the all-around competition at the 2010 World Championships, which is the highest position that Chinese women ever placed in all-around competition at World Championships or Olympic level.
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Jiang Yuyuan is from Guangxi. Her father is a taxi driver and her mother is unemployed with no regular income.[2] Jiang's family was under a lot of financial pressure when she was little.[3] Jiang has a keen interest in photography, digital gadgets, cars, fashion and cosmetics. She also likes listening to English songs.[4][5][6] Team members Cheng Fei and Yang Yilin single out Jiang as the most beauty-conscious and trendy member in the national women team. Jiang is responsible for teaching other female members of the national team about make-up technique.[4] Jiang said in one of her interviews that she is sometimes "a little bit of a rebel". Her Headcoach in Chinese national team, Lu Shanzhen, agreed that she would become rebellious occasionally and said that Jiang has the "most character" among the female gymnasts in the national team.[7] Jiang's idol is her fellow gymnast, Cheng Fei.[8]
Jiang and her teammate, Deng Linlin, appeared in the official Olympics documentary 筑梦2008 (Dream Weavers 2008) which followed the gymnasts from 2003 until Jiang's international debut at the 2007 World Championships.[9][10]
Li Ning's cousin was Jiang's neighbour when she was little. After noticing that the little Jiang Yuyuan was very energetic for a little kid, he suggested Jiang's parents to take her to gymnastic lessons. And her parents took his suggestion and enrolled Jiang in gymnastic classes before she was four.[3][11] She was once selected by the Guangxi Provincial Team to participate in a three-month training camp but her parents received a call from the Provincial Team asking them to bring Jiang home less than two months after the training began. Her coach at that time insisted that Jiang had talent and persuaded Jiang's parents to leave Jiang under her care and she would train Jiang personally. But it would be a dead end for a gymnast's career in China if one could not join the Provincial Team, so when opportunity came, Jiang was transferred from Guangxi to join the Zhejiang Provincial Team.[3][8]
In the 2002 Provincial Gymnastics Championship, Jiang won the all-around title for the Zhejiang Provincial Team, and that made the coaches of the National Team to take notice of her. Jiang then joined the National Training Camp in 2003. But the Training Camp was forced to disband due to the outbreak of the disease, SARS. Jiang joined the National Team 2 in 2004, and was selected from a list of 300 hopefuls of Team 2 to join the National Team 1 in 2006.[12]
She made her senior international debut in 2007. She was a member of the Chinese team that won the silver medal in the team competition at the 2007 World Gymnastics Championships, and placed 4th on floor exercise in the individual event finals. In November 2007 she won the all-around at the Good Luck Beijing Olympic Test Event.[13]
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jiang helped the Chinese team to win the team gold medal at the Olympics. Individually, she came in 6th in the all-around due to a fall on vault; and finished in 4th place in the floor exercise event final.[14] Jiang competed at the Olympics with an elbow injury, specifically periosteum inflammation.[15] Her coach disclosed that the injury greatly affected her performance at the Olympics, particularly on vault, where pain prevented her from successfully executing her 2.5-twisting Yurchenko (Amanar), which was crucial for her success in the individual all-around final. As a result of the injury, Chinese coach Lu Shanzhen also decided to pull Jiang from the vault rotation in the team finals, replacing her with Deng Linlin 20 minutes before the competition began.[16]
In 2009, she participated in the 2009 Summer Universiade. She won a team gold medal with her teammates, Cheng Fei, He Ning, Zhou Zhuoru and Liu Nanxi. Individually, she won two gold medals in the all-around competition and on balance beam, a silver on floor exercise and a bronze on uneven bars.
In 2010, Jiang made herself into the Chinese women team of the 2010 World Championships. The team qualified second into the team final, while Jiang herself qualified 4th into the all-around final along with teammate Huang Qiushuang. She also placed 5th on uneven bars, but did not advance into the final due to the 'two per country rule' while her teammates He Kexin and Huang Qiushuang qualified first and second. In the team final, Jiang participated in all four events. Despite falls and mistakes made by Jiang and her teammates, the Chinese women team managed to secure a bronze medal, following Russia and the United States. In the all-around final, Jiang impressed the audience with consistent routines with great execution and artistry in all four event. Jiang finally finished 2nd behind Russia's Aliya Mustafina, with a total score of 59.998.[17] Jiang also competed in the Toyota cup winning gold on uneven bars 15.425 and bronze on floor, 14.175 behind Aliya Mustafina and Sui Lu who tied for gold.
On March 24, 2011 Jiang is set to compete in Canada's Wild Rose Cup along with newcomers and juniors Huang Huidan and Shang Chunsong.
Jiang serves as the captain of the Chinese team since 2010. At the National Training Center, her responsibilities include looking after younger gymnasts at the dormitory.[18]
In early 2008, Yang Yun, an artistic gymnast who won two bronze medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics, admitted on state-run television that she was 14 when she had competed.[51] Consequently, there was frequent speculation that members of the Chinese women's gymnastics team were 14 years of age or under,[52] violating the minimum age requirements of Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), the governing body of the sport. Younger gymnasts are lighter and more supple than adult gymnasts,[53] and have also been said to be more fearless when performing difficult manoeuvres.[54][55]The New York Times claimed that official media and some official Web sites in China, including that of the State General Administration of Sport, listed Chinese gymnasts' details which indicated that He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin may have been as young as 14.[56] During the Olympics, media focused their attention on He, Yang, Jiang and Deng Linlin.[52] In response, Chinese officials claimed the discrepancies for He Kexin were caused by paperwork errors when the gymnast switched teams.[56] Chinese authorities presented passport information to show that they were 16 years old as of 2008.[57][58] Chinese coach Lu Shanzhen explained that Chinese competitors had for years all been small. "It is not just this time. It is a question of race. European and American athletes are all powerful, very robust. But Chinese athletes... are by nature that small."[59] Sportswriter E.M. Swift criticized the IOC for "spend[ing] millions of dollars trying to ferret out drug cheats [while ignoring] allegations of institutionalized cheating" by the Chinese government.[60]On 22 August 2008 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) instructed the FIG to investigate the allegations that He Kexin was under-age,[53] and were asked to report back to the IOC later that day.[54] The FIG accepted passport ages as valid proof and declared gymnasts eligible.[54] On 23 August, further pressure led the FIG to request additional documentation on five of the six athletes on the Chinese team.[61] IOC president Jacques Rogge said that FIG had demanded "birth certificates and all the documents like family books, entries in schools and things like that." While the FIG investigation was in progress, the IOC indicated reshuffling of the medals was unlikely.[62] Having been satisfied with the proof of age received from the Chinese Gymnastics Association, the FIG ended the investigation on 1 October 2008, concluding that He and her teammates were eligible to compete.[63][64]
Vault: 2.5-twisting Yurchenko (A Score: 6.5)
Year | Competition Description | Location | Apparatus | Rank-Final | Score-Final | Rank-Qualifying | Score-Qualifying |
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2011 | World Championships | Tokyo | Team | 3 | 172.820 | 3 | 230.370 |
All-Around | 20 | 55.074 | |||||
Uneven Bars | 75 | 12.866 | |||||
Balance Beam | 9 | 14.575 | |||||
Floor | 33 | 13.633 | |||||
World Cup/Series | Ghent | Uneven Bars | 2 | 15.375 | 3 | 14.950 | |
Balance Beam | 15 | 13.125 | |||||
Floor Exercise | 8 | 12.050 | 8 | 13.300 | |||
National Championships | Kunshan | Team | 2 | 222.000 | |||
All-around | 5 | 54.650 | 7 | 55.450 | |||
2010 | Asian Games | Guangzhou | Team | 1 | 234.150 | ||
World Championships | Rotterdam | Team | 3 | 174.781 | 2 | 233.778 | |
All-around | 2 | 59.998 | 4 | 58.099 | |||
Balance Beam | 16 | 14.333 | |||||
Uneven Bars | 5 | 15.200 | |||||
Floor Exercise | 25 | 13.833 | |||||
2009 | National Games | Jinan | Team | 4 | 164.675 | 4 | 217.550 |
All-Around | 6 | 56.875 | |||||
Uneven Bars | 6 | 14.275 | |||||
2008 | World Cup/Series Final | Madrid | Floor Exercise | 2 | 15.225 | ||
Uneven Bars | 2 | 15.700 | |||||
Olympic Games | Beijing | Team | 1 | 188.900 | 1 | 248.275 | |
All-Around | 6 | 60.900 | 7 | 60.625 | |||
Floor Exercise | 4 | 15.350 | 8 | 15.050 | |||
2007 | World Championships | Stuttgart | All-Around | 147 | 44.825 | ||
Floor Exercise | 4 | 15.100 | 8 | 14.750 | |||
Team | 2 | 183.450 | 2 | 241.175 | |||
Uneven Bars | 16 | 15.375 | |||||
World Cup/Series | Shanghai | Floor Exercise | 1 | 15.225 | |||
Uneven Bars | 1 | 16.100 | |||||
Vault | 3 | 14.412 |
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