Cheng Fei, the “Queen of Chinese Gymnastics”, retired due to injury on the eve of the 2012 London Olympics. (combination picture / flip from Weibo)
Cheng Fei, the Chinese gymnastics queen who left the “Cheng Fei Jump” in the gymnastics world and won 9 consecutive world championships, had to retire early due to an injury at the age of 24. After that, her weight rose sharply due to recuperation, and she once exceeded 100 kg. , so that she, who is very popular in the mainland, cannot have a boyfriend. Now her focus is all on training the next generation of new gymnastics stars. As for the other half, “work hard together if you have it, and work hard for yourself if you don’t have it.”
According to Lu media reports, 34-year-old Cheng Fei was born in an ordinary family in Hubei. At the age of 3, a table tennis coach saw that he had the potential to practice gymnastics, and was recommended to the famous coach Yao Juying. The edge of solution. However, Cheng Fei was soon found to have a congenital “defect” of splayed legs, which made her have to start training from walking. In addition to walking on her toes, she was also tied up with white cloths below the knees when sleeping to correct her. After adhering to it for several months , and finally adjust the feet to a posture suitable for gymnastics.
With astonishing talent and hard work, Cheng Fei won the vaulting championship with 9.7 points in the 540-degree vertical back flip in the Japanese Junior Gymnastics Competition in 2003. In the same year, she won vault and women’s floor exercise 2 at the Asian Championships. She won a gold medal and made a name for herself in the Asian gymnastics world; in the women’s vaulting final of the 2005 World Gymnastics Championships, she completed the “Cheng Fei Jump” that shocked the sports world. The vaulting action of turning 180 degrees and doing a 540-degree straight forward flip makes this action the first female vaulting action named following a Chinese in the history of world gymnastics.
But on the eve of the 2012 London Olympics, Cheng Fei suffered an accidental rupture of the Achilles tendon during training, which was critical to the life of an athlete, forcing her to retire early when she was not yet 24 years old. Cheng Fei later returned to her alma mater Wuhan Sports Institute to work, and climbed all the way to the position of dean. However, due to taking a lot of hormone-containing drugs and lack of dietary management during the recovery period, Cheng Fei’s weight soared, and once exceeded 100 kg. The queen’s celestial aura was gone.
Cheng Fei once ridiculed that she mightn’t get a boyfriend because she was too fat, and she was quite indifferent to her relationship. She once said: “If you meet, work hard together, if you don’t, work hard for yourself, and both marriage and children are forced not to. Come, choose what you can accept.” However, the father who asked Cheng Fei to learn table tennis and accidentally started her gymnastics career might not think so. He once mentioned in a letter to his daughter that he hoped that his daughter would find someone who would be nice to her. The son-in-law will do, nothing else.
