) is a Chinese gymnast

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

. She is a three-time World Champion on the vault

Vault (gymnastics)

The vault is an artistic gymnastics apparatus, as well as the skill performed using that apparatus. Vaulting is also the action of performing a vault. Both male and female gymnasts perform the vault...

 (2005–2007) and 2006 World Champion on floor exercise. She was a member of the gold medal-winning Chinese teams for the 2006 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

2006 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

39th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held in Aarhus, Denmark from October 13 to October 21, 2006 in NRGi Arena.It was the first time the World Gymnastics Championships was organized by a Danish city...

 in Aarhus

Aarhus

Aarhus or Århus is the second-largest city in Denmark. The principal port of Denmark, Aarhus is on the east side of the peninsula of Jutland in the geographical center of Denmark...

, Denmark and 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. She was also a member of the silver medal-winning Chinese team for the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

The 40th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart, Germany, from 1 to 9 September 2007.Oldest and youngest competitors- Men :- Women :- Finals :- Qualifications :- Floor :...

 in Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

, Germany.

Biography

Her father worked as a shipping clerk and her mother was a worker in a tire factory. Her father trained her in calisthenics

Calisthenics

Calisthenics are a form of aerobic exercise consisting of a variety of simple, often rhythmical, movements, generally using multiple equipment or apparatus. They are intended to increase body strength and flexibility with movements such as bending, jumping, swinging, twisting or kicking, using...

 before school every morning. At the age of 5, Cheng won her first competitive medal at a local competition. The 7-year-old Cheng was sent to Wuhan

Wuhan

Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...

, where she joined the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education

Wuhan Institute of Physical Education

Wuhan Institute of Physical Education is a tertiary educational institution in China. According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Education of China, the WIPE is one of the four leading universities in the physical education area in China...

 and officially entered the national sports program. Her first coach, Yao Juying remembered her as being uniquely 'hard-working' and extraordinarily focused. At the age of ten, she was invited to join the Hubei provincial team. In late 2001, at the age of 13, she was accepted to the Chinese National Team. Her coaches are head coach Lu Shanzhen, and Liu Qun Lin.

Cheng Fei is well known in the sporting world for being highly consistent, powerful and elegant, as well as displaying a fine level of sportsmanship. Sandra Izbasa

Sandra Izbasa

Sandra Raluca Izbaşa is a Romanian artistic gymnast. Her best event is the floor exercise on which she is an Olympic champion and a three-time European Champion. She also won medals on balance beam, vault, all around, and with the team...

, 2008 Olympic Floor Champion has described her as a perfectionist, a great sport and a good friend. Shawn Johnson

Shawn Johnson

Shawn Machel Johnson is an American artistic gymnast. She was the 2008 Olympic balance beam gold medalist and all-around, and floor exercise silver medalist, the 2007 all-around World Champion, and the 2007 and 2008 U.S. all-around champion...

, 2008 Olympic Beam Champion, was also quoted to have called Cheng Fei 'inspirational' and 'a great competitor'. Cheng Fei's leadership abilities are of paramount importance to the Chinese Women's Gymnastics Team.

Competitive history

Cheng Fei is a vaulting and floor exercise specialist. She has had national success in gymnastics as a two-time Chinese National Floor Exercise Champion (2004–2005), a two-time Chinese National Vault medalist (2003 and 2005) and the 2004 Chinese National Balance Beam Champion.

Internationally, she has been very successful as well. She made herself into the 2004 Olympic Games team in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Greece. She qualified in the floor exercise final. In the team final, she contributed heavily to the team, a 9.475 on vault and a 9.662 on floor, although multiple falls from her teammates prevented her from getting a team medal. Individually, she finished 4th on floor exercise, with the score of 9.412. She was the bronze medalist at the 2004 World Cup Final on floor exercise.

On 23 November 2005, Cheng made history at the 2005 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

2005 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

The 38th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia from the 21st to the 27th November 2005. Only the all-around and event finals were contested at this meet...

 in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, for being the first gymnast ever to successfully perform one of the most difficult vaults ever attempted by a woman. The vault consisting of: a round-off onto the springboard, a half-turn onto the vaulting horse and a 1½ somersault with a 540-degree turn in a straight body position, is now officially recognized in the FIG

FIG

FIG may refer to:*Common fig, a large, deciduous shrub native to southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region.*Ficus, a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs in the family Moraceae.-Acronym:* Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique...

 Code of Points

Code of Points (artistic gymnastics)

A Code of Points is a rulebook that defines the scoring system for each level of competition in gymnastics. There is no unified, international code of points; every oversight organization—such as FIG , NCAA Gymnastics, and most national gymnastics federations—designs and employs its own unique Code...

 as "The Cheng" which carries a D-score of 6.5 under the 2009 Code of Points.

At the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus

Aarhus

Aarhus or Århus is the second-largest city in Denmark. The principal port of Denmark, Aarhus is on the east side of the peninsula of Jutland in the geographical center of Denmark...

, Denmark, she competed on vault and floor exercise, qualifying in first position for both event finals. She contributed those exercises to the Chinese team toward their victory in the team championship and also went on to win the World titles on both vault and floor exercise. Cheng also won the gold medal on the vault at the 2006 World Cup Final in São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

.

In 2007, Cheng began the year by winning the vault, balance beam and floor exercise titles at a World Cup event in Maribor

Maribor

Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....

, Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

. She was undefeated on vaulting and floor exercise in 2007 until the 2007 World Championships in Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

, Germany. At those championships, Cheng was recognized as the leader for the Chinese women's team and though Cheng won her third World title on the vault, she made a serious error on the vault during the team championship where the Chinese team finished 2nd. She went on to finish 5th on floor exercise, with a score of 15.050, after getting out of the bounds with both feet in her final tumbling series.

Cheng fulfilled her goal of competing at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China as the captain to the Chinese team. She led the team to win China's first-ever women's gymnastics Olympic team Gold medal. Individually, she won a bronze medal on vault (even after falling on her own "Cheng Fei vault") and another bronze medal on balance beam and placing 7th in the floor exercise event final, after an uncharacteristic fall. She was one of the only three gymnasts to have entered 3 Olympic Finals (others are Nastia Liukin and Anna Pavlova). She led the qualifications in both the Vault and Floor categories, also entering Beam finals with a ranking 5. However, she faltered during the individual events and cried after the unfortunate Vault and Floors finals. After the Olympics, she said that she cried about her failure to capture the two golds she wanted most until she could cry no more. However, she received great support from both her fellow countrymen and the international gymnastics community, who acknowledged her talents and abilities as an exceptional gymnast. In a show of respect she gave the winner of the balance beam final Shawn Johnson

Shawn Johnson

Shawn Machel Johnson is an American artistic gymnast. She was the 2008 Olympic balance beam gold medalist and all-around, and floor exercise silver medalist, the 2007 all-around World Champion, and the 2007 and 2008 U.S. all-around champion...

 of USA a small box with silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 inside it.
After the Olympics Games, she competed in various competitions. She won three gold medals on vault, floor exercise and balance beam at the DTG World Cup in Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

. Her last 2008 competition was the 14th Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 where she won two gold medals on vault and floor exercise.

In 2009, she competed at the 25th Universiade in Belgrade and won a team Gold medal and a Silver medal on Vault

She is now recovering from a leg injury and has expressed hopes to compete again at the London 2012 Olympics. She competed in the 2011 Chinese National Championships in May on Vault and Floor Exercise. She led the qualifications on Vault and finished 2nd on final. She announced her intention to compete in the University Games in August, but was reported to be suffering from leg injury again and retreated from the competition.

Routines

As of 2008, Cheng Fei performed the following skills on these apparatuses:

Apparatus	Skills	A Score	Top Score in World Championship/World Cup/Olympic Competition
Vault	1. Yurchenko 2½ (Amanar Amanar The Amanar is an artistic gymnastics vault, first performed by Simona Amanar at the 2000 Olympics.Performance at an Olympics or World Championships is required to get naming credit. The Amanar belongs to the Yurchenko vault family, and contains two and a half twists in the backward salto.The skill... )	6.5	16.150 (Olympic Qualifications)
	2. Round-off flic-flac with ½ turn on – stretched salto forward with 1½ turn off (Cheng)	6.5	16.000 (2006 World Championships)
Uneven Bars	(Has not competed on this apparatus since 2005)	-	-
Balance Beam	Free jump mount; Full turn with leg at horizontal; Flic-flac + Salto bwd tucked with 1/1 twist; Pike Back Salto; Split jump + Sheep jump; Switch split ring leap + Back tuck salto; Aerial Walkover + Rulfova; Front tuck salto; flic-flac + flic-flac + 2.5 twist back salto	6.8	15.950 (Olympic Beam final)
Floor Exercise	Double twisting double tuck back; whip + 3-1/1 Twist; Split leap full; Double twisting (Side-pass); 1-1/2 Twist + Tuck Front 1-1/1; Switch split ring leap + split leap; triple spin; Full twisting double pike back	6.4	15.875 (2006 World Championships)

Competitive highlights

Year	Competition Description	Location	Apparatus	Rank-Final	Score-Final	Rank-Qualifying	Score-Qualifying
2004	World Cup	Ghent	Vault	5	9.287
		Glasgow	Vault	3	9.187
			Floor	2	9.550
		Birmingham	Vault	5	9.362
			Floor	3	9.562
	Olympic Games	Athens	Team	7	110.008	3	151.085
			Vault			16	9.375
			Floor	4	9.412	2	9.650
			Beam			43	8.925
2005	World Cup	New York	Vault	3	9.331
			Beam	5	8.937
		Ghent	Vault	3	9.312
	World Championships	Melbourne	Vault	1	9.656	1	9.631
			Floor			28	8.637
2006	World Cup	São Paulo	Vault	1	15.600
			Floor	5	14.625
		Shanghai	Vault	1	15.125
			Floor	1	15.400
		Lyon	Vault	1	14.987
			Floor	1	14.975
	World Championship	Aarhus	Team	1	182.200	2	239.525
			Vault	1	15.712	1	15.975
			Floor	1	15.875	1	15.475
2007	World Cup	Maribor	Vault	1	14.812	1	14.750
			Floor	1	14.825	1	15.050
			Beam	1	15.675	1	15.750
		Shanghai	Vault	1	15.462
			Beam	1	16.150
	World Championship	Stuttgart	Team	2	183.450	2	241.175
			Vault	1	15.937	1	15.625
			Floor	5	15.075	1	15.375
			Beam			15	15.300
2008	World Cup	Tianjin	Vault	1	14.975
			Floor	1	15.550
			Beam	1	15.925
	Olympic Games	Beijing	Team	1	188.900	1	248.275
			Vault	3	15.562	1	15.912
			Floor	7	14.550	1	15.750
			Beam	3	15.950	4	15.875
	World Cup	Stuttgart	Vault	1	14.900	1	14.962
			Floor	1	15.250	1	14.975
			Beam	1	15.425	1	15.525
		Madrid	Vault	1	15.050
			Floor	1	15.375
			Beam	6	13.825

Floor Music

• 2003: Lord of the Dance from Riverdance
• 2004: Variations from Don Quixote
• 2005–2007: Mas Zarzuela
• 2008: Yellow River Concerto

External links

• Cheng Fei Profile
• Cheng Fei biography from NBC Olympics site
• Cheng Fei's photos at GymBox