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Yang Xia Finally Turns Hard Work into Olympic Gold
For some two years, Yang Xia has only one aim in her mind: an Olympic gold medal. During these two years, she has not returned home in Hunan Province, some 1,500km away from Beijing. She has not seen her grandparents, her parents, two brothers and two sisters for two years.
"I hope to fly back home immediately to stay with them for some time," Yang said as the women's 53kg category Olympic gold medal eventually draped around her neck.
But the first people she wanted to thank was her coaches. She called them at once after walking off the podium. "There are serval coaches who have thrown all their weight behind me," she said. "Without them, I would have never won an Olympic gold medal."
Born in a family of Tujia minority groups in central China's Hunan Province, Yang began her weightlifting career at age 12. At that time, almost no girls had heard about the sports.
"I just thought it was funny and wanted to make a try," she said. "But through some training, I found I could do it very well and gradually I began to love it."
One year later, Yang won her first gold medal in a country-level competition and was chosen later by the provincial team. She jumped to fame in 1997 at the Asian Championships by breaking three world records winning two gold medals.
She consolidated her leading status in the women's 53kg category at the Chinese National Games later that year after cracking clean and jerk world record and winning the total title.
In 1998, she stunned the weightlifting world as she broke the jerk and total world records in winning three gold medals at the Bangkok Asian Games.
"After that, I told me that I should go to Sydney in 2000 and win an Olympic gold medal," the beaming Yang said.
Yang met little challenge during Monday's competition. She broke snatch, jerk and total world marks with 100kg, 125kg and 225kg respectively, before winning the gold medal.
Li Feng-Ying, Yang's former fellow teammate now representing Chinese Taipei, totalled just 212.5kg to take the silver.
"I felt very relaxed in the competition," Yang said. "It's like a match at home. The jerk result of 125kg was even lower than my personal best."
Yang gave up her third attempt in the jerk after a 125kg lift in the second attempt had anchored her the gold medal.
"Her performance was fantastic and fully demonstrated China's leading position in the sport," said Zhang Wenxi, head coach of Chinese women's weightlifting team.
With the Olympic gold in hand, Yang said her next aim is to win a world title. "I have never won a gold in the World Championships, so I hope to claim a Grand Slam of titles of all international competitions."
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