Lu Li (; born August 30, 1976) is a Chinese gymnast. Lu made the Chinese national team in late 1991. However, liver illness almost prevented her from competing in the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

. In April 1992, just a few months before the Barcelona Games, she made her international debut at the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

in Paris, where her highly innovative

uneven bars The uneven bars or asymmetric bars is an artistic gymnastics apparatus. It is made of a steel frame. The bars are made of fiberglass with wood coating, or less commonly wood. The English abbreviation for the event in gymnastics scoring is UB or ...

routine caught the attention of the gymnastics world. She only placed 4th because of a large step on the dismount, (although she was the leading gymnast in qualifying for the final). Lu is best known for her gold medal on the

in the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. She won this with a perfect 10, which she achieved the same night as

Lavinia Miloșovici Lavinia Corina Miloșovici (born 21 October 1976) is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast.Jane Perlez (13 July 1995"Romanian Coach Keeps Up the Fight" ''New York Times'' An exceptionally successful athlete on the international competition circuit ...

also scored a perfect 10. Lu Li and Lavinia Miloșovici remain the last two people to score perfect 10s in Olympic competition to date. Lu Li also won a silver on the

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

in the same games (tied with American

Shannon Miller Shannon Lee Miller (born March 10, 1977) is an American former artistic gymnast. She was the 1993 and 1994 world all-around champion, the 1996 Olympic balance beam champion, the 1995 Pan American Games all-around champion, and a member of the ...

with a score of 9.912). This makes Lu Li China's second most successful female Olympic gymnast after Liu Xuan. Lu had troubles on her beam performance in the all-round competition, and placed a disappointing 34th. Lu competed in the 1993 Chinese National Games and won the uneven bars title (tied with Luo Li, who would go on to win the 1994 World Championships in Brisbane). She retired shortly thereafter. In 2000, Lu Li moved to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and was a coach there. She married Kim David Gussenhoven and has a son named JD. She moved to

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

in 2007, still as a coach. In 2009, Lu Li moved to Stockton,

and coached at

Champion Gymnastics Academy A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...

. On September 1, 2009, Li, Kim, and JD moved to Washington and she was hired to coach at

Emerald City Gymnastics Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium.Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Jr. and Kammerling, Robert C. (1991) ''Gemology'', John Wiley & Sons, New York, p. ...

in Redmond. Recently, she has started coaching gymnasts in

Gig Harbor Gig Harbor is the name of both a bay on Puget Sound and a city on its shore in Pierce County, Washington,. The population was 12,029 at the 2020 census. Gig Harbor is one of several cities and towns that claim to be "the gateway to the Olympic ...

.Chinese Olympic gold medalist named new coach at Emerald City Gymnastics
, Redmond Reporter. Li then coached at Tech Gymnastics (formerly Eastside Gymnastics Academy) in Woodinville, WA. Currently Li coaches at Black Hills Gymnastics in Lacey, WA. They divorced in 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lu, Li 1976 births Living people Chinese female artistic gymnasts Gymnasts at the 1992 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for China Olympic silver medalists for China Olympic medalists in gymnastics People from Ningxiang Sportspeople from Changsha Gymnasts from Hunan 20th-century Chinese women