Guo Shuang

Who is Guo Shuang?

Guo Shuang is a Chinese professional track cyclist. She won two bronze medals at the 2006 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, in Sprint and Keirin, and two silver medals at the 2007 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, again in Sprint and Keirin.

Guo had an eventful semi-final in the sprint at the 2008 Summer Olympics, having won the first heat and conceded the second to her opponent Anna Meares, the third heat saw Guo come down the banking too steeply and her front wheel slipped from beneath her. The heat was re-run and although Guo won by a few millimetres, she was relegated for coming down the tack and pushing Meares onto the côte d'azure on the final lap. This put Meares through to the final ride-off for gold. Guo went on to win the final ride-off for the bronze against Willy Kanis.

Guo competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She and Gong Jinjie set a world record of 32.447 seconds in the qualification round of the team sprint event, which they then improved upon with 32.422 in the next round. They went on to finish first in the final against the German team, but were disqualified for an early relay, and were relegated to the silver medal instead. Guo and Gong's coach Daniel Morelon maintains that the pair were "robbed" of the gold medal, and described it as an "injustice". He complained that the judges refused to provide a "video footage of the race on slow motion", and only provided a "vague explanation" for the infringement they had allegedly committed. However, the British cycling champions Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish, who were also disqualified for a similar reason earlier on in the competition, accepted the judges decision and chose not to claim that they were unfairly robbed of a medal. Pendleton recovered and went on to win a gold medal in the women's keirin event with Guo Shuang coming 2nd.