Name: Yang Wei (杨威)
Age: 27 (dob: Feb. 8, 1980)
Hometown: Xiantao, Hubei Province
Previous Olympic Medals Won: Gold in Men’s Gymnastics Team Competition and Silver in Men’s Individual All-Around Competition at Sydney ‘00

    As a member of the inimitable Chinese Men’s Gymnastics Team at Sydney in 2000, Yang Wei medaled twice and demonstrated why the Middle Kingdom remains renowned for producing some of the best tumblers in the world. His agility was the subject of universal admiration, and what the then 20-year-old Yang lacked in grace and refinement he made up for with power and enthusiasm. But just when the international gymnastics community thought he would come into his own and seize individual all-around gold at Athens, Yang had a meltdown on the mats.

    Losing control on the high bar, Yang dangled from one hand for several seconds and scored an abysmal 8.987. Had Yang successfully completed his routine without losing control, he would have almost assuredly taken the gold since rival Paul Hamm had fallen earlier on vault. By failing to complete his routine, Yang set into motion the Paul Hamm/Yang Tae Young gold medal controversy that divided men’s gymnastics for months after the Games. When interviewed by an AP reporter after the event, Yang, who ended up in seventh place, could only shake his head in disbelief and say, “What a pity. I really didn't think I would make a mistake on that event.''

    But now Yang is back, and he’s determined to fulfill the promise he once showed. In 2006 he won gold with his team and in the individual all-around competition at the 15th Asian Games held in Doha, Qatar. In so doing, the 26-year-old, who made his Asian Games debut in the 1998 Bangkok Games, tied fellow countryman Li Ning as the most prolific male gymnast in the Asiad’s history with eight golds. Then he did it again at the 2006 World Championships, leaving with golds in the team and individual all-around competitions. Now Yang is poised to ascend to the rarefied air of first place in 2008 and sees only one obstacle in his path to the podium: “Japan is our target to beat in the 2008 Olympics,” Wang told a reporter from China’s official Xinhua News Agency in 2006.

    Since then, he's avoided making similarly inflammatory statements -- but his magnanimity has its limits. When asked by a reporter earlier this year about his opinion of archrival Tomita Hiroyuki of Japan, Yang said it's still too early to talk about the fight for the individual all-round gold between Hiroyuki and him. “Although I defeated Tomita Hiroyuki at this year's world championships, the world championships are not the Olympic Games, after all.” No doubt he hopes the results will be the same.