Results tagged “wangyan”

According to the official countdown, the Beijing Olympics are about 240 days away and the pressure is mounting for China's athletes to bring home the bacon, especially in China's strongest events like ping pong, diving, and gymnastics. In traditional Chinese business fashion, gymnastics coaches are making their gymnasts sign a contract to stay injury-free and drug-free in preparation for the Games, according to this article from China Daily. In an unusual move to secure a...

This weekend is the next stop for Olympics hopefuls at the Gymnastics World Cup stop in Shanghai. The action begins tomorrow with the preliminary competition, which will determine the eight finalists that will compete on the four apparatuses for the women and six for the men. Since this is a World Cup event, there will be no all-around competition. Tomorrow's preliminary competition will be followed by the event finals on Saturday and Sunday. With the...

Great news. Wang Yan, the 15-year old Chinese gymnast who was widely tipped to be paralyzed for the rest of her life from her fall at the National Gymnastics Championship two weeks ago in Shanghai, is said to be making remarkable progress, improving beyond her doctors' expectations and surprising even the surgeons that made the initial diagnosis. According to China Daily, the gymnast is "able to relieve herself on her own, and as her muscular sense is gradually returning, she can swing her left arm that at first she could not move ideally, lift her legs up and down and has regained some hand mobility", and her coach has even expressed confidence that she will soon stand up again. Wang Yan's injury was a high-profile one that captured the attention of worldwide media and since then there has been an ongoing debate on whether there should not be an upper cap in the difficulty levels used by panels in judging the performance of gymnasts. Sure, we all want to be producing the next Olympic gold, but at what cost?

Although the Olympic Games are over a year away, a preview of what's to come next summer has arrived in Shanghai this week. Shanghai is the host for this year's Chinese National Gymnastics Championships, featuring some of China's best and brightest gymnasts. China's men's team AND women's team are the defending World Champions. The preliminary competitions finished up last weekend, with the team finals finishing today and tomorrow, and the individual competitions (all-around final and...