Published : 2024-12-09
On December 9, 1979, Ma Yanhong (馬燕紅) won China's first world gymnastics championship.
Ma was born in a working-class family in Dongcheng District, Beijing. At the age of 11, she was selected into the Bayi Gymnastics Team, focusing on the uneven bars.
Ma Yanhong joined the national gymnastics training team in 1978. The following year, she competed in the 22nd World Gymnastics Championships held in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
In the competition, the 15-year-old girl performed beautiful movements with high difficulty and innovative choreography, earning a high score of 19.825.
She tied for first place with another strong competitor from East Germany and both won the gold medal. This gold was the milestone for Chinese gymnastics, as it was the first gold medal for China in the world gymnastics competition.
Ma Yanhong set multiple firsts in Chinese gymnastics history.
Besides being China's first world gymnastics champion, she was also China's first Olympic gymnastics champion, and the first Chinese to have her name used for a gymnastic movement, which is the "Ma Yanhong dismount".
