Zou Kai
China
Artistic Gymnastics
Overall Ranks
#15 among Gymnasts
#9 among Male Gymnasts
#5 among Chinese Olympians
#1 among Chinese Gymnasts
Olympic Results
2008
Team - Gold
Floor Exercise - Gold
Horizontal Bar - Gold
2012
Team - Gold
Floor Exercise - Gold
Horizontal Bar - Bronze
Total
Events - 8
Gold - 5
Bronze - 1
Zou Kai was born on February 25, 1988 in Luzhou, China, and trained as a gymnast from a young age. He made his international debut at age 18 at the World Championships, where he won a gold medal in the team event. He specializes in the floor exercise and horizontal bar, rarely competing on any other apparatus.
He made the Chinese Olympic team in 2008, which took place in Beijing. The first event was the team competition, where China took first place in qualifying, having the highest score as a team on 3 of the six apparatuses. Zou was China's high scorer in his two best events. In the final, he only participated in those two parts, but he scored the highest score of anybody on both, and the Chinese team beat Japan by more than 7 points for the gold medal.
Because of those performances, he qualified for both event finals. Even with his high scores in the team event, he was not expected to medal in the floor exercise, but after falls from the two favorites, and a flawless performance with the most difficult routine, Zou won the gold medal by 0.275 points over his nearest competitor, which is a massive differential in gymnastics.
In the horizontal bar, the favorite was German Fabian Hambuchen, and Zou was not really considered a contender, but he again put on a perfect performance, scoring a 16.2, more than 0.3 ahead of Hambuchen, who finished third, with Jonathan Horton of the USA also surprising many by taking a medal. Zou became only the second Chinese Olympian ever to win 3 gold medals in a single Olympics.
In the next two World Championships, Zou showed that his performances in Beijing were not a fluke. He won silver in the floor exercise both times, and gold in the horizontal bar in each. He returned to compete in the 2012 Olympics in London, once again focusing on his two specialties.
China and Japan were considered co-favorites in the team event, but in qualifying they ended up in 6th and 5th place, respectively, which was luckily for them still enough to qualify for the final. In the final, Zou again had the highest score of any gymnast in both the horizontal bar and the floor exercise, and China was able to successfully defend their title, beating Japan by 4 points to take the gold.
He again qualified for both of his specialty finals. In the floor exercise, he and Kohei Uchimura were co-favorites, as defending Olympic champion and World champion. Zou had the slightly higher score in the qualifying round, then improved upon it in the final round, scoring a 15.933 to beat Uchimura by .133 points to win another gold medal, the fifth of his career.
In the horizontal bar, Zou was the favorite, having won the last Olympics and the past 2 World Championships. He was only in 7th after qualifying, but that was just a formality for him. In the final, he was the 4th to perform, and his routine was tied for the toughest in the competition. His execution score was high enough to put him into the lead, but Hambuchen and Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands both eclipsed his score later, leaving Zou to take home his first-ever bronze medal.
He continued competing for a couple more years, winning some medals at the 2014 Asian Games before retiring as an athlete. He technically competed in two other Olympic events, the vault and pommel horse, once each, but just to fill a spot more than to actually compete. In the events in which he was invested, he was near-perfect, with his 5 gold medals ranking #2 in Chinese Olympic history, and making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
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