Jiang Yuyuan

Jiang Yuyuan
— Gymnast —
Jiang Yuyuan doing floor exercise in Hong Kong
Personal information
Nickname(s)	Yuanyuan
Country represented	People's Republic of China
Born	(1991-11-01) November 1, 1991 Liuzhou, Guangxi
Height	148 cm (4 ft 10 in)
Weight	32 kg (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"
Retired	October 2013
Medal record Competitor for  China Olympics Games 2008 Beijing Team World Championships 2007 Stuttgart Team 2010 Rotterdam All-Around 2010 Rotterdam Team 2011 Tokyo Team World Cup Final 2008 Madrid Uneven Bars 2008 Madrid Floor Exercise World Cup 2007 Shanghai Uneven Bars 2007 Shanghai Floor Exercise 2008 Doha Floor Exercise 2008 Ostrava Uneven Bars 2008 Ostrava Floor Exercise 2008 Doha Uneven Bars 2008 Ostrava Balance Beam 2012 Doha Uneven Bars 2007 Shanghai Vault 2012 Doha Floor Exercise Asian Games 2010 Guangzhou Team Summer Universiade 2009 Belgrade Team 2009 Belgrade All-Around 2009 Belgrade Balance Beam 2009 Belgrade Uneven Bars 2009 Belgrade Floor Exercise

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 retired 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.

Personal life

Jiang Yuyuan is a Hakka born in Liuzhou, Guangxi with ancestry from Yunan, Guangdong.^[2] Her father is a taxi driver and her mother is unemployed with no regular income.^[3] Jiang's family was under a lot of financial pressure when she was little.^[4] Jiang has a keen interest in photography, digital gadgets, cars, fashion and cosmetics. She also likes listening to English songs.^[5][6][7] 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.^[5] 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.^[8] Jiang's idol is her fellow gymnast, Cheng Fei.^[9]

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.^[10][11]

Gymnastics career

Li Ning's cousin was Jiang's neighbour when she was little. After noticing that the little Jiang was very energetic for a kid, he suggested to Jiang's parents that they sign her up for gymnastics lessons. Her parents took his suggestion and so Jiang was enrolled in gymnastics classes by the time she was four.^[4][12] 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.^[4][9]

Jiang captured glory in the 2002 Provincial Gymnastics Championships for the Zhejiang Provincial Team by winning the all-around competition and, in so doing, caught the attention of the National Team coaches. Soon thereafter, in 2003, she joined the National Training Camp for a stint before it 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.^[13]

She made her senior international debut in 2007 as a member of the Chinese team that won the silver medal in the team competition at the 2007 World Gymnastics Championships. At the same competition, she 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.^[14]

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jiang helped the Chinese team to win the team gold medal at the Olympics. Individually, she finished in 6th place in the all-around competition and finished 4th place in the floor exercise event final.^[15] Jiang competed at the Olympics with an elbow injury, specifically periosteum inflammation.^[16] 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.^[17]

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 was selected to compete for the team of women representing China at 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 finished 2nd behind Russia's Aliya Mustafina, with a total score of 59.998.^[18] 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 has served as the captain of the Chinese team since 2010. At the National Training Center, her responsibilities include looking after younger gymnasts at the dormitory.^[19]

2008 age controversy

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.^[20] Consequently, there was frequent speculation that members of the Chinese women's gymnastics team were 14 years of age or under,^[21] violating the minimum age requirements of Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), the governing body of the sport, that requires gymnasts to be 16. Younger gymnasts are lighter and more supple than adult gymnasts,^[22] and have also been said to be more fearless when performing difficult manoeuvres.^[23][24]

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 Jiang, He Kexin and Yang Yilin may have been as young as 14.^[25] During the Olympics, media focused their attention on Jiang, He, Yang and Deng.^[21] In response, Chinese officials claimed the discrepancies for He Kexin were caused by paperwork errors when the gymnast switched teams.^[25] Chinese authorities presented passport information to show that they were 16 years old as of 2008.^[26][27] 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."^[28] 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.^[29]

On 22 August 2008 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) instructed the FIG to investigate the allegations that He Kexin was under-age,^[22] and were asked to report back to the IOC later that day.^[23] The FIG accepted passport ages as valid proof and declared gymnasts eligible.^[23] On 23 August, further pressure led the FIG to request additional documentation on five of the six athletes on the Chinese team.^[30] 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.^[31] 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.^[32][33]

Skills

Vault:

• 2.5-twisting Yurchenko (A Score: 6.5) (2008)
• DTY (A Score: 5.8) (2009-2012)

Competitive highlights

References

External links

• Jiang Yuyuan at Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique

Olympic Champions in Artistic Gymnastics - Women's Team All-Around     1928 Netherlands 1936 Germany 1948 Czechoslovakia 1952 Soviet Union 1956 Soviet Union 1960 Soviet Union 1964 Soviet Union 1968 Soviet Union 1972 Soviet Union 1976 Soviet Union 1980 Soviet Union 1984 Romania 1988 Soviet Union 1992 Unified Team 1996 United States 2000 Romania 2004 Romania 2008 China 2012 United States 2008:  China (CHN), Yang Yilin, Cheng Fei, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin, He Kexin, Li Shanshan