Li Ya
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Li Ya (Simplified Chinese:李娅) is a Chinese gymnast born on June 13, 1988 in Anhui Province. Li Ya is an uneven bars and balance beam specialist. Li Ya is the 2004 National Champion on the uneven bars as well as the 2004 National All Around Silver Medalist. She a greta deal of success in the 2004 World Cup Circuit despite a bad showing at the 2004 Olympics. She won the uneven bars title at the Glasgow and Ghent World Cup Qualifiers. She also won a bronze medal at the 2004 Glasgow World Cup Qualifier. In December 2004 Li Ya qualified to the World Cup Final in Birmingham. She was the most successful Chinese female gymnast at the World Cup Final. She won a bronze medal on the uneven bars and a silver medal on the balance beam.
Li Ya was briefly injured in 2005, but recovered in time to win silver medals at the 2005 Chinese National Championships and the 2005 Britain Vs China Dual Meet on the uneven bars. In October, she competed at the National Games but failed to win any medals. A few weeks later, however, she was part of China's winning team at the East Asia Games in Macao, where she also grabbed a gold medal on the uneven bars. Despite this, she was not selected for the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne.
Li Ya competed in the 2006 Tournament of Masters in Cottbus ( a world cup event) and won the gold medal on the uneven bars with a beautiful, original and difficult routine where she pioneered a difficult release-release combition, a Jaeger with a half turn directly into a Jaeger. Ya also qualified for the beam final and unfortunately finished out of the medals in fourth place, due to a mistake on her first skill.
Li Ya competed at the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark where she was a member of the Chinese team that won the Gold Medal in the Women's team event. She did not compete in the team final, having withdrawn herself from the Uneven Bars due to nerves sustained from a performance married by a fall in the preliminary comptition. She was seen to be in hgih spirits during the competition though, cheering loudly for teammates and helping them prepare for their routines.
After this disappointing competition, Li Ya did not receive positive coverage from the press in China and was not named to the team for the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. However, she had one more chance, having qualified for bars and beam in the World Cup Finals in Brazil, held in December. Here, she was excellent, finally hitting her difficult routines in major competition. She took silver on bars behind world champion Beth Tweddle, and won gold on the balance beam. It remains to be seen whether the Chinese gymnastics federation will be willing to give her another chance after the lacklustre world championship performance, but in her World Cup triumph she did prove that she is capable of performing as well as the very best.
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