Yang Wei (gymnast)

Yang Wei
— Gymnast —
Personal information
Full name Yang Wei
Country represented  China
Born February 8, 1980
Xiantao, Hubei
Hometown Wuhan, Hubei
Height 160 cm (5 ft 3 in)
Discipline Men's artistic gymnastics
Level Senior
Club China National School
Head coach(es) Huang Yubin
Assistant coach(es) Wang Guoqin
Retired June, 2009
This is a Chinese name; the family name is Yang.

Yang Wei (simplified Chinese: 杨威; traditional Chinese: 楊威; pinyin: Yáng Wēi; born February 8, 1980 in Xiantao, Hubei) is a male gymnast from China.

Career

Yang Wei won the silver medal in the individual all-around competition and won the gold in the team event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

In 2003, he again won the gold in the team event and silver in the all-around competition at the 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim.

At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, his world championship winning team finished fifth after many of them fell. Wei was also the favorite to win the gold medal at the Individual All-Around in Athens as well, but a fall from the high bar earned him a low score of 8.975 and put him out of medal contention. He placed seventh that night. The Chinese team redeemed itself by taking gold in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, beating out Japan and the United States.

Yang returned to form at the 2006 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Aarhus, by winning gold in the team event, individual all-around and parallel bars competitions. He also won gold medal in the team event, individual all-around, rings and parallel bars competitions at the 2006 Asian Games.

He successfully defended his team and all-around titles at the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, and won the all-around and rings at the Chinese National Championships in 2007 and 2008.[1]

Yang Wei won gold in the individual all-around and the team final at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He also won a silver in the rings event final and placed fourth in the pommel horse event final.[2]

Yang Wei is best known for his impressive difficulty scores across the six events.[1]

Personal life

Yang Wei has a long-time relationship with former gymnast, Yang Yun, who is an Olympic bronze medalist (uneven bars) for China, and now a CCTV reporter. In June 2006, Yang Wei invited Yang Yun to a news conference, which turned out to be a ploy for him to surprise her with a proposal. While he trained for the Beijing Olympic Games, the two had very few chances to be together, and kept in touch through text messaging.[3] After his Olympic gold in the All-Around in Beijing on Thursday, Yang Wei faced the camera and mouthed the words, "I love you," to his fiancee. Yang Yun, who watched his victory on television, shouted "I love you, too!" back to the screen.Yang Wei: "Gold Medal for my Love!"[4] The two married on November 6, 2008. Their son, Yang Wenchang (杨文昌), was born November of 2009.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Yang Wei- Bio of Gymnast Yang Wei". Gymnastics.about.com. Retrieved 2011-10-29.
  2. ↑ http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GA/C73G/GAM024101.shtml#GAM024101
  3. ↑ http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_487674f50100b18r.html
  4. ↑ August 14, 2008 (2008-08-14). "Yang Wei: "Gold Medal for my love!" - CNN iReport". Ireport.com. Retrieved 2011-10-29.

External links