Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #101 - Fu Mingxia

Fu Mingxia

China

Diving

Overall Ranks

#7 among Chinese Olympians

#1 among Divers

Olympic Results

1992

Platform - Gold

1996

Springboard - Gold

Platform - Gold

2000

Springboard - Gold

Synchronized Springboard - Silver

Total

Events - 5

Gold - 4

Silver - 1

Fu Mingxia was born on August 16, 1978 in Wuhan, China. She began practicing gymnastics at age 5, but the coaches felt that she wasn't flexible enough for gymnastics, and that her body control would make her a good diver, so she switched sports at age 7 and never looked back.

She won a gold medal at the World Championships when she was just 12 years old, and qualified for the Chinese Olympic team at age 13. She competed in the platform diving event in Barcelona, which was only allowed because she was weeks away from turning 14, and absolutely crushed the competition, placing first in qualifying by nearly 32 points, then winning in the final by just short of 50 points. She was the youngest gold medalist in Barcelona, and is still the 5th-youngest of all time.

In 1994, she won another World Championship in platform diving, making her a big favorite to repeat her gold medal in Atlanta in 1996, and it went just as expected. She led after qualifying and the semifinal, increasing her lead as she went, and in the final she put it completely out of reach, winning by more than 42 points.

She also competed in the springboard in Atlanta, where the favorite was Tan Shuping, another Chinese woman and defending world champion. Tan had two bad dives in a row in the qualifying round, however, and failed to advance to the semifinal. Fu, meanwhile, qualified in 4th place, then held that spot through the semifinal round, before making her move in the final, which consisted of 5 dives. Vera Ilyina, the leader to start the final, succumbed to the pressure, and after two dives, Fu had moved ahead of her and into the lead, a lead which she extended over the next three dives to win the gold medal going away, with a final margin of 35.49 points, making her the first woman to win both diving events at the same Olympics since 1960.

After the 1996 Olympics, she retired in order to attend college, feeling burned out from nonstop training for nearly a decade. After a couple of years away from the sport, she started diving on the university's team, and rediscovered her love for it, and decided to give the Olympics another try. She once again made the team, and headed to Sydney for the 2000 Games.

Her first event was the Synchronized Springboard, a new event that year, paired with Guo Jingjing, an up-and-coming diver who would go on to win 4 Olympic gold medals herself in future Olympics. The pair was expected to win, but the Russian pair started strong and kept a safe distance ahead of the Chinese throughout, winning by 11 points and giving Fu her first-ever silver medal.

Her final event was the springboard, where she was defending champion, but not the favorite. That would be Guo, who had beaten her at the Chinese Olympic trials. Fu led the competition through the qualifying and semifinal rounds, but Guo closed the gap throughout, and took the lead after two dives in the final round. That's when Fu made her move, posting the best score among all divers on each of her final three dives, and she ended up defeating Guo by 11 points to win a final gold medal. 

Following those games, Fu, now 22 years old, retired from diving for good. Even when she was just a child, she dominated the competition, with two of the biggest blowouts in Olympic diving history, and her 5 medal in 5 events make her the greatest Olympic diver of all time, and one of the greatest Olympians.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #104 - Xiong Ni

Xiong Ni

China

Diving

Overall Ranks

#8 among Chinese Olympians

#2 among Divers

#1 among Male Divers

Olympic Results

1988

Platform - Silver

1992

Platform - Bronze

1996

Springboard - Gold

2000

Springboard - Gold

Synchronized Springboard - Gold

Total

Events - 5

Gold - 3

Silver - 1

Bronze - 1

Xiong Ni was born on January 11, 1974 in Changsha, China, and was trained as a diver from a young age. At the age of 8, he was selected for the Hunan Province team, and by age 12 he was selected for the national training center. The next year, he won his first international competition, and at age 14, he represented China in the Olympics for the first time.

The favorite to win the Platform diving event in Seoul was Greg Louganis, the defending champion, but many were excited to see the young Xiong. He finished the qualifying round in second place, and was the only diver anywhere close to Louganis' score, sitting 16 points behind at that point. In the final round, which consisted of 10 dives, the two quickly pulled away from the rest of the field, and there were never more than 10 points separating them. After each had done his ninth dive, Xiong held a 3 point lead on the favorite, but Louganis pulled out the most difficult dive in his arsenal, and it was enough to put him ahead of the youngster by just more than a point, leaving Xiong with a hard-fought silver in his first Olympic appearance.

Louganis retired after the 1988 Olympics, leaving Xiong as the new face of platform diving, but in 1990, a new young Chinese diver named Sun Shuwei appeared, and in 1991 he beat Xiong at the World Championship. The two were co-favorites heading to Barcelona in 1992, at just 18 and 16 years of age.

The two Chinese teammates were far ahead of the competition in qualifying, with Xiong ahead by almost 6 points, but in the final, Sun showed why he was the world champion, performing every dive perfectly and pulling far ahead of everyone else. Xiong attempted a couple of very difficult dives that didn't end well, and as a result, he dropped down to bronze medal position by the end of the competition.

After Barcelona, Xiong switched his focus to the springboard rather than the platform, and it would be a great move for him. Another teammate, Yu Zhuocheng, was the favorite in Atlanta, but Xiong held a big lead through qualifying and the new semifinal round. In the final, Yu took the lead after their 4th of 6 dives, and still held it heading into the final dives, but Xiong performed his final dive nearly perfectly, and ended up winning the gold medal by 10.53 points.

He graduated from Hunan University with a degree in foreign trade in 1997 and announced his retirement, but changed his mind a year later and returned to competition. He competed in Sydney in the springboard again, and he also participated in the first Olympic synchronized springboard competition, with Xiao Hailiang as his partner.

The springboard came first, and Dmitry Sautin of Russia was the favorite, though Xiong was the defending champion and always a threat. Xiong led after qualifying by 12 points, with Fernando Platas of Mexico a surprise in second place, followed by Sautin. Sautin moved up to 2nd after the semifinal, and took the lead after the 5th dive in the final. On the final dive, Sautin missed slightly, opening the door for Xiong, who nailed his final dive and ended up with a gold medal, just 0.3 points ahead of Platas.

The synchronized springboard event was nowhere near as close. Each of the 8 pairs performed 5 dives, with only a single round determining the winner. The Chinese pair were the highest-scoring on every single dive, and they ran away with the gold medal by 35.61 points over the Russians.

After winning his second and third golds in 2000, Xiong retired again in 2001, this time for good. After his amazing performance as a 14-year-old in 1988, it seemed like greatness was on the way for Xiong, and he lived up to that potential, winning 5 medals in his 5 events, including 3 golds to close out his career, making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.