Yang Yun My Olympics Documentary
jodiefan
8 min - Jul 5, 2007
2007.6 CCTV5
This picture was taken after Yang Yun returned home from Sydney Olympics Games. Both of her parents did gymnastics when they were young.
Yang Yun: Since both of them were gymnasts, the talent has passed down to me. I believed that I had the quality to be a good gymnast, and so did my coach.
Yang Yun joined the national team at 10 years old. She was a pretty good AA gymnast and competed at her first major international competition in 2000-the Olympics Games.
Yang: I was really lucky at that time, because I did have any injury.
The word lucky has its own meaning here. Because of injury, Yang Yun missed out almost every single major competition during her gymnastics career.
2000 Olympics Games AA Final,standing besides the well-known Khorkina and Liu Xuan, no one noticed this 14 years old new-comer. However, she was second behind Khorkina after the 1st rotation. At the 2nd rotation, Khorkina fall on her vault due to the vault's incorrect setting, Yang Yun was due to do her beam right after the accident.Her parents watching in front of TV were extremely nervous.
Yang: I could see what happend at vault before mounting to beam. I smiled after Khorkina fall and others might think I was laughing at her.But actually I was not.One of the judge was saying 'don't be nervous, just do what you can' at that time.
But she fall on her layout and dropped her to fifth.
Yang: I was only 14 at that time. So I thought that even though I fall this time, I could do better next time. I would have another chances.
Yang Yun ended her Olympics debut with two bronze medals(team and UB) as well as placed 5th at Floor. After return to Beijing, she took this picture with her parents. It was the highlight of her 15 years of gymnastics career.
After the Olympics, Yang Yun became the leader of Chinese WAG team.
But from 2001, she broken her hand many times and each time, she had to miss out some i