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New York pays tribute to China's 'Diving Queen'
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-12-20 09:28

One of China's sporting giants has been invited to take a bite out of the Big Apple on December 31.

Gao Min, who was to retire after winning successive gold medals at the 24th and 25th Olympiad, waved farewell to the audience. [newsphoto/file]

Gao Min, who retired 12 years ago as the greatest female springboard diver in the history of the sport, will be a special guest of the organizing committee trying to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to New York City. She is one of only five athletes from around the world to be honoured in the city's 100th anniversary of New Year's Eve in Times Square.

Erica Nelson, the bid committee's sports manager, said the city is honouring one athlete from each of the five regions that represent the Olympic rings. In the official invitation to Gao, who is representing Asia, Nelson said: "We could think of no better way to honour you for your magnificent accomplishments than on this massive stage when a billion eyes around the world will be watching."

Gao was born in Zigong, Sichuan Province, in 1970 and learned to swim at age four. She took up gymnastics a few years later, and began platform diving training after being spotted by a diving coach at the Zigong Sports School. She was selected for the Sichuan provincial team in 1980 and joined the Chinese national squad for intensified training in 1985 when she shifted to springboard competition.

Gao won her first major international title - the world three-metre springboard crown - in 1986 and over the next seven years she was never beaten in international competition.

Nicknamed the "Diving Queen," she notched 580.23 points en route to winning China's first Olympic gold medal in springboard at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and repeated the feat in 1992 at Barcelona. In between, she won three world championships, captured double gold at the 1990 Beijing Asian Games, and was voted one of the nation's top 40 sports stars since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Now 34 and the head coach of the Kinsmen Diving Club in Edmonton, Canada, Gao remains the only female diver to eclipse 600 points on the springboard, and her record of 635 stands far beyond the reach of most of today's international crop.

"This is such good news, such a wonderful honour," Gao said when she received the invitation. "I am very honoured to take part in this ceremony and to represent China and Asia. It is especially meaningful for me because of Beijing hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics."

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