Having won a world diving title at the age of 12 and an Olympic gold medal at the age of 13, Fu Mingxia achieved cult status. Hailing from Wuhan, Hubei Province in China, Mingxia was sent to Beijing when she was nine years old to train as a diver. She trained hard, sometimes even up to seven or eight hours a day and was allowed to see her parents only once a year.
Within three years of beginning her training in Beijing, Mingxia won the gold medal at the 1991 World Championship in Perth. She thus became the youngest world champion ever. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Mingxia won the 10-metre platform gold to become China’s youngest Olympic champion ever. This prompted the world body of aquatics to change the rules to allow only divers who are above 14 years to compete in the Olympics.
The gold in Barcelona was Mingxia’s springboard to glory. Her victory margin of over 50 points over runner-up Yelena Miroshina of the Commonwealth of Independent States (the team from the former Soviet Union) showed her tactical superiority. With ‘degree of difficulty’ being a major factor in scoring, Mingxia mastered the tough dives and always ended up scoring heavily.
After having watched Mingxia’s breath-taking somersaults with envy, America’s coach Ron O’Brien said: “I think Fu set a new standard today and with her degree of difficulty. Anyone who wants to be competitive will have to do those dives in the future.”
Four years later, in Atlanta, Mingxia reached the apotheosis of her exceptional skills as she went on to win gold medals in the 3m springboard and 10m platform.
After the Atlanta Games, Mingxia retired as she couldn’t undertake intensive training anymore. She then enrolled in the Tsinghua University to learn management science. But the urge to return to the pool proved stronger. “I didn’t dream of competing for the Olympics again at that time. I just felt that I still wanted to dive and there were the National University Games in sight so I decided to come back,” she said. “I had a big dream of competing in my third Olympics (Sydney). I worked hard and successfully passed national trials, finishing second thereby winning a place in the Olympics.”
On her comeback, Mingxia proved that she had lost none of her skills. Taking part in her favourite 3m springboard at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the Chinese clinched her fourth gold in the quadrennial event and carved her name in the all-time great divers’ list.
K. Keerthivasan
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