Kui Yuanyuan

Who is Kui Yuanyuan?

Kui Yuanyuan is a former Chinese Gymnast born on June 23, 1981. She is strong on 3 events: Balance Beam, Floor Exercise and Vault. She participated in two Olympic Games, two World Championships and qualified for the 1998 World Cup Final. Kui shocked everyone when she became the 1996 World Champion on floor exercise, although a fall in the semi-finals prevented her from making finals in her best event, the beam. After her unexpected win she competed at the 1996 Olympics, finishing 4th with her team. She also recorded the highest score of the entire Olympics on the balance beam, a 9.875 during the team optionals, and in doing so, became the only gymnast to top the 9.862 scored three consecutive times by Olympic balance beam champion Shannon Miller. Unfortunately, a fall from the beam during the team compulsories prevented Kui from making the beam finals. She also failed to make the final in the floor exercise.

Kui went on to win two bronze medals at the 1997 Worlds with her team and on the balance beam.

The balance beam results turned into one of the most disputed events in gymnastics history. Kui performed one of the most difficult routines of all time, yet finished .012 behind Romania's Gina Gogean, who competed one of the easiest sets performed in World competition during the 1990s. Kui's rare full-twisting back layout on the beam drew gasps, as did her three split leaps to back handspring, 2 layout step-outs. Kui lost the silver medal as well, to Svetlana Khorkina of Russia, when a tie-breaker was put into effect, respectively. The results prompted the president of the Federation of International Gymnastics to publicly chastise the judges and tell them they were wrong.