Yang Yang

▪ 2002

      Chinese short-track speed skater Yang Yang—known as Yang Yang (A)—confirmed her dominance on the ice in 2001 by winning her fifth consecutive world championship overall title. During three days of competition in Chonju, S.Kor., Yang reached the finals of all five women's events, taking gold in the 1,000-, 1,500-, and 3,000-m individual races and the 3,000-m relay and silver in the 500-m race. Her decisive win came as little surprise. After a season in which she had reached the finals in 14 of the 17 events she competed in and had tallied eight individual wins, she entered the world championships as the top-ranked woman on the World Cup circuit. The letter A often appended to Yang's name stood for her birth month of August and distinguished her from teammate Yang Yang (S), who was born in September and with whom Yang often shared the medalists' podium. The written distinction between Yang Yangs (A) and (S) was for the benefit of non-Chinese speakers, because their names were pronounced differently in Chinese.

      Yang was born on Aug. 24, 1976, in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, near the Russian border. She began skating in 1984, and by age 13 she had reached the finals of an International Skating Union test competition. Yang qualified for the Chinese short-track team in 1995, but she overtrained for the 1996 world championships and achieved only mediocre results. By the next season she had perfected her training, and at the 1997 world championships she split an overall win with two-time world champion Chun Lee Kyung of South Korea. In doing so she became China's first world short-track champion.

      Yang had a mixed showing at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, where she failed to win any individual medals. She was strong in early heats and, in fact, set a world record (1 min 31.991 sec) in the 1,000-m quarterfinal. In the 1,000-m final, she again met Chun, the defending Olympic champion, whom she led for most of the race. The two tangled arms at the finish, however, and Chun kicked forward to win by centimetres before falling to the ice. Compounding the loss, judges then disqualified Yang for interference. The only medal Yang took home from Nagano was a silver for the 3,000-m relay. She blamed poor mental preparation for the results. Later in 1998, however, Yang won her second world championship—this one hers alone—and she thereafter dominated the World Cup circuit and the world championships. After the 2001 win, her hopes settled on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she promised to be a strong contender to capture China's first-ever winter gold.

Colin J. Murphy

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