Jiang Yuyuan
Country represented	China
Height	140 cm (4 ft 7 in)
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 Summer Olympics 2008 Beijing Team competition World Gymnastics Championships 2007 Stuttgart Team competition World Cup 2007 Shanghai Uneven Bars 2007 Shanghai Floor Exercise 2007 Shanghai Vault

Template:Chinese name Jiang Yuyuan (also Yuyan; simplified Chinese: 江钰源; traditional Chinese: 江鈺源; pinyin: Jiāng Yùyuán) is a Chinese gymnast. She is the 2008 Chinese all-around senior National Champion^[3] and a member of the gold medal-winning Chinese team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Jiang was a member of the silver medal-winning Chinese team at the 2007 World Championships and the all-around gold medalist at the 2007 Good Luck Beijing competition.

Personal Life=

Jiang Yuyuan came from a poor family in Guangxi.^[4] Her father is a taxi driver and her mother is unemployed with no regular income.^[5]

Jiang has a keen interest in digital gadgets, especially digital cameras. She also loves sport cars, reading magazines on fashions, cosmetics and digital gadgets, listening to western pop music and taking photographs of the others.^[6][7][8] In an interview with Jiang's team members, Cheng Fei and Yang Yilin, they were asked that who is the most trendy and fashionable member in the national women team, they both answered "Jiang Yuyuan". Jiang is also responsible for teaching other female members of the national team about make-up technique.^[6] Jiang said in one of her interviews that she is sometimes "a little bit of a rebel". Her coach, Lu Shanzen, agreed that she would become rebellious occasionally and said that Jiang has the "most unique character" among the girl gymnasts in the national team.^[9] Jiang is also famous for her weird ideas among her team mates. For instance, when every member of the national team would take the bus to travel between their dormitory and the training stadium, Jiang would ride a bicycle instead because she feels that taking the bus is boring.^[10] Jiang's idol is her fellow gymnast, Cheng Fei.^[11]

Shortly after Jiang was transferred to the Zhejiang Provincial Team, she over spent her allowance and owed someone 400 yuan. When her mother learned about this, she immediately paid back Jiang's debt and left a few hundred more to Jiang's coach so that Jiang could have money to spend. After this incident, Jiang cried and told her coach that she does not want allowance anymore as her father is unemployed and mother has no money herself. At one time, Jiang could not stand the hardship of the training and called her mother saying that she wants to quit gymnastics. Her mother jokingly asked Jiang to come home and go begging with her. This made Jiang gave up the idea and promised to keep on training as begging would be "losing face" (losing dignity). ^[5]

At the beginning of her career at the national team, Jiang would use little tricks to take breaks during training, and the most effective way to make her train honestly was nothing else but to confiscate her prize money.^[5] Her coach at the Zhejiang Provincial Team also commented that Jiang was very clever but well-known for her laziness, and that Jiang could learn a skill much faster than the other young gymnasts but if told to perform 25 times of the "Hanging Leg Raise", Jiang would certainly do less if you didn't keep an eye on her.^[11][12] Jiang has a nickname "Monkey" because she likes the feeling of practising on the apparatuses but would not persuade others to start a career in gymnastics.^[8] When Jiang was five, she fell from the Balance Beam when she saw her parents watching her from the grandstand at a junior gymnastics competition. After that, she never let her parents watch her compete.^[11]

Jiang and her teammate, Deng Linlin, appear in the official Olympics documentary 筑梦2008(Dream Weavers 2008) which premiered at the China Film Archive in July 2008.^[13]

Gymnastics career

Jiang began gymnastics in 1998.^[1] After beginning her gymnastics career in Guangxi Province, she transferred to the Zhejiang Provincial Team in 1999. Chinese media reports that Jiang began training with Liozhou Sports Academy in 1994,^[14] when she was 4. Jiang is ranked within the top three on floor, vault and uneven bar in China.^[15]

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.^[4][10] 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 has talent and persuade Jiang's parents to leave Jiang under her care and she would train Jiang personally. But it would be an 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][11]

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.^[16]

Jiang and her teammate, Deng Linlin, appear in the official Olympics documentary 筑梦2008(Dream Weavers 2008)^{[citation needed]} which premiered at the China Film Archive in July 2008.

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.^[17] Jiang competed at the Olympics with an elbow injury, specifically periosteum inflammation^{[citation needed]}. 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, which was crucial for her success in the individual all-around final. As a result of the injury, Chinese coach Lu Shanzen also decided to pull Jiang from the vault rotation in the team finals, replacing her with Yang Yilin 20 minutes before the competition began.

Age controversy

Jiang's age is disputed. Her 2008 passport, Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique profile, the Chinese Olympic Committee and a 2007 report from Jiang's hometown, Liaozhou, give a November 1, 1991 date of birth,^[1][18] which indicated that she was 16 years, 10 months old on the first day of the Olympics, and therefore old enough to compete at the Olympics and the 2007 Worlds under the pre-Olympic-year age-exemption. However, the Associated Press, the New York Times and other major media outlets have verified that other official documents within China, including a list of junior competitors in Zhejiang Province, indicate that her date of birth is October 1, 1993.^[19][20], which would make her too young to compete at the 2007 Worlds and 2008 Olympics. The FIG, in responding to the situation, stated that they considered the passports already supplied by Chinese officials to be sufficient, and would not ask for additional information to verify Jiang's age. The IOC also refused to intervene, stating that the FIG's own verification system would be acceptable proof of eligibility.^[21][22]

However, on August 21, the IOC announced that, in light of new evidence, they had asked the FIG to reopen the investigation into age discrepancies on the Chinese team.^[23][24][25] On Friday August 22, 2008, the IOC said they had not uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing "so far", but the FIG requested additional documentation for five of the six gymnasts on the Chinese team, including Jiang.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} On August 24, Stryde, a computer expert and hacker working for a New York-based firm called the Intrepidus Group, accessed and published screenshots and data from the official Zhejiang Provincial Sports Administration website, which included Jiang's name, national identity number and the October 1, 1993 birthdate.^[31][32] These new data are uncovered through a link in a email sent to Stryde by an anonymous source.^[31] Stryde also admitted that he cannot confirm the authenticity of these data.^[31] Anonymous Internet posters have found information that contradicts the data on age uncovered and posted by Stryde, and Chinese authorities have continued to assert that Jiang and her teammates are of age.^[32] However, the IOC confirmed on August 28 that the FIG investigation was still active and in progress.^[32] The IOC also stated that the medal standings are unlikely to change.^[33]

Jiang Yuyuang's coach, Lu Shanzhen, said the parents are indignant over the allegation.^[34]

Skills

Vault: 2.5-twisting Yurchenko

Competitive Highlights

References

External links

• Jiang Yuyuan at the International Gymnastics Federation