2001 9th All China Games Wushu Competition
ShunDe, Guangdong, China - August 21-23, 2001

Some articles I've translated, there are tons out there, I'll try to add more and more as I get the chance (Last Updated 9/05/01).

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Note: I'm still in the process of translating the tons of articles available on the net about the competition into english. If you can read Chinese, there are some listed down at the bottom of this page.

Mysterious "fan" suddenly yells sharply, distracting Kong Xiangdong, causing him to lose the gold - (NanFang Daily) - 8/23/01 ( 神秘“嘉宾”突然尖叫孔祥东受惊失金牌)

Shunde 8/22 - (Authors Dai Xuedong, Wen Jianhua) - This afternoon as the 
men's Taijiquan division was underway, 1999 Taiji world champion, Guangdong 
team member Kong Xiangdong was in the running for the gold.  In yesterday's 
Taijijian competition, he scored 9.15, surpassing the second place competitor 
by 0.14 points. Unless he's careless, will win the Taiji All-Around gold 
medal for the Guangdong team.

The more fearful, the more fantastic.  In this competition Kong Xiangdong has 
suffered from heartless people in the audience's "dark plot" against him. 
He had a brief brush with the gold.
 
This afternoon in Taijiquan Kong Xiangdong was the third on the carpet. 
The Taijiquan form has two relatively difficult required movements,  the 
audience generally applauds loudly and cheers AFTER the athlete completes 
these moves.  As Kong Xiangdong was doing the first require movement, the 
"Front Kick turn 360 into raised foot 180 degree body turn with a single 
leg landing" move, from the audience came down a loud, piercing shout, making 
Kong Xiangdong step and sway as he completed this movement, ultimately getting 
an 0.2 deduction. Therefore Kong Xiangdong's mood is greatly effected by 
this.  In the tense "Jumping peddle double whip fist empty leg control body 
landing" he didn't rise high into the air and recieved an 0.1 deduction. 
Therefore Kong Xiangdong's Taijiquan score was only 8.96, the hope of getting 
the gold depended only on the other athletes making mistakes.

When Kong Xiangdong finished competing, he pointed at three people in the 
audience and continuously shook his head and sighed. Guangdong Team coaches 
and team members also discovered this irregular situation, they all asked 
eachother whether or not they recognized the three people, sitting in the 
second row in seats number 26,27, and 28.  These three audience members 
hurriedly left as soon as Kong Xiangdong finished. The Guangdong Wushu Team's 
Taiji coach, "Taiji King" Wang Er Ping  was extremely furious, he said "This 
is corrupt sportsmanship!"

The 11th athlete on the carpet, Hebei athlete Yi Peng obtained a 9.16 in 
Taijiquan, passed Kong Xiangdong by 0.06 points, to barely take the Men's 
Taijiquan all-around gold medal.

In this competition a "dark plot" emerged, the Guangdong Wushu Team immediately 
brought an appeal to the arbitration comittee members.  Its a pity that 
it was too late to change the results however.

For 1000 RMB, the Beijing Team "buys" a Gold Medal - (Nanfang Daily) - 8/24/01

A Strange Matter at the 9th Games Wushu Forms Competition

Shun De, 8/23 (Author Wen Jianhua, Dai Xuedong) - This afternoon at the 
9th Games Wushu Forms Championship four gold medals were decided.  Because 
of four teams appealing the results, the final results couldn't be announced 
until as late as 5pm.  Of these four appeals, only the Beijing team's was 
successful, causing the fourth place athlete to leap all the way up to the 
gold medal.

The Beijing Team's appeal really had drama.  In the afternoon during the 
men's straightsword division, Shi Kun performed normally, he did his required 
movements pretty well.  But just when he was satisfied with his own performance,
 the judges announced that he didn't do the movements well, and deducted 
0.3 points, this caused him to immediately fall into cellar.  At the competition 
arena, the author saw when the judge announced the deductions, they suddenly 
stopped and whispered into the ear of the judge next to them,  then one of 
the other judges motioned for them to continue reading,  so this judge continued 
to read out Shi Kun's score.  This is how Shi Kun ended up in 4th place 
without a medal.

After the competition finished, the Beijing team team leader immediately 
pulled out 1000 RMB (US $125) for the appeal fee and went to the arbitration 
committee to file their complaint. They pointed out that Shi Kun didn't 
make the errors announced by the judges.  After watching the video tape, 
 the arbitration committee agreed that Shi Kun did not do all the mistakes 
announced, and gave him back 0.1 points. With this correction, Shi Kun's 
final score was 18.10,  instantly jumping to the first place spot in the 
men's straightsword/spear combined division, only 0.01 greater than the 
second place competitor.

Changing the results after the competition is over is rarely seen in large 
competitions.  The reporter who did the research for this article joked 
- Beijing spent 1000 RMB to "buy" this gold medal, but it was really worth 
it.

Guangdong Team Athlete Takes the First Gold Medal at the 9th Games in Guangdong (Xinhua News Agency) - 8/21/01
[Photo of Chen Lun]

In this afternoon's 9th All China Games' 
men's nanquan division, Guangdong athlete Chen Lun won the nanquan all-around 
nanquan championship.  This is the first medal awarded at the All China 
games in Guangdong.

The 9th Games wushu taolu competition started this morning at the ShunDe 
Sports Hall, all-together there were 26 groups with 152 athletes who will 
within three days compete in men's and women's nanquan, changquan, taijiquan,
 broadsword/staff and straightsword/spear all-arounds and in sparring sets, 
a total of 12 gold medals.

Nanquan all around includes Nangun and Nanquan. In this morning's competition,
 the most forceful yell was Chen Lun's in the Nangun division.  0.02 behind 
Tianjin's veteran Lang Rongbiao.  In this afternoon's nanquan division, 
the first on the field was Tianjin team's Wei Yue, who obtained a high score 
of 9.0.

"Heavy Cup" - Interview with Women's Changquan Champion Liu Qinghua (Sinowushu. com) - 8/23/01
[Click for Photo!]

This morning in women's changquan all-around's final event, individual changquan, 
despite sharp competition, veteran Liu Qinghua idly walked away with the 
Women's changquan championship.  Also its the Beijing team's second day 
at the competition since the first gold medal was given.  Wang Xiao Na followed 
with the silver medal.

Liu Qinghua has already won at the National Championship, Asian Games, and 
World Games. This 9th Games gold medal is a final accomplishment before 
retiring.  At long last her final wish has been achieved, one can say "kung 
fu" doesn't just depend on determination, in preparing for this 9th games, 
she paid much. 

Liu Qinghua, with her exquisite skill has not only won over the country, 
but all over the world.  The whole audience enthusiastically answered with 
cheers and shouts of 'bravo'.  Also she won over the judges,  in the final 
individual changquan event,  she got the highest score of 9.35 and calmly 
walked away with the gold medal.  Perhaps this is a competition with no audience 
involvement,  in the audience, the author heard other province's team coaches 
and team leaders say in secret, "Her performance was really strong,  when 
she walked out to compete, the gold was all hers."

At tonight's medal ceremony, after Liu Qinghua recieved a large heavy cup 
from Mr. Cun Gang, she raised it high towards the audience.  Finally the 
author found Liu Qinghua outside the arena,  the only thing she said was 
"This thing is too heavy!"

Otherwise, in this evenings women's straightsword competition Liu Qinghua 
is currently in third place. This event's gold medal will be decided tomorrow 
morning.

The 9th Games Wushu Competition ended tonight, the last two events, men's 
and women's sparring sets were won by the Shandong and Tianjin teams, respectively.

At this high level wushu competition, the sparring sets are a relatively 
"good looking" event.  Consequently tonights audience was especially large. 
 First, in the women's competition, the Tianjin team's Yu Hao'er, Liu Yanyan 
and Li Xiang performed double broadswords against two spears.  They were 
the 12th team up, and recieved the highest score, 9.33, taking the championship.
  Hebei team's  Fu Linuo and He Xingnuo performed straightsword versus straightsword 
to win the silver,  Ningxia's Qiu Xiaoying and Zhang Tengou took third.

The men's sparring gold medal was won by Shandong's Wang Jianguo, Yuan Xindong 
and Luo Junwei.  They arranged this three men's emptyhand form quick and 
violent, especially characterized by falls.  They obtained a first place 
score of 9.35.  Sichuan team's He Qingshan, Ning Wei and Tang Kangmin got 
second and the Liaoning team's Li Cheng, Gao Zhi and Hu Tengjiao took third.

Chinese Wushu Association director Wang Jie said this event was a success, 
 the first round of success for Guangdong's 9th Games.

Speaking of this tournament's special moments, Wang Jie considers the 10 
provinces, areas and cities that enjoyed the 12 gold medals, showing that 
the teams are at an even level,  breaking the previously strong provinces' 
monopolizing.  At the competition, Gulin, Liaoning and other provinces team's 
young athletes showed their high levels, wushu's border holds a large number 
of talented people.

After three days of intense, thrilling, emotional competition, the 9th Games 
ended on the 23rd of August. On the 24th, the Beijing team started on their 
way back to Beijing from Shunde, Guangdong.  They reached Beijing at noon 
today,  the ShiChaHai Sports School administrators, teachers and students 
went to the trainstation to enthusiastically welcome the Beijing Wushu team 
back.  

At these 9th All-China Games, the Beijing Wushu Team all-together won 8 
medals,  2 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze,  a good accomplishment.  Liu Qinghua, 
Shi Kun won women's changquan and men's straightsword/spear respectively. 
 Liu Qinghua, Wang Xiao Na,  Zhao Qingjian, Jian Zenjiao each won silver 
in Women's Straightsword/Spear, Women's Changquan, Men's Broadsword/Staff 
and Men's Changquan, respectively.  Qiu Huifang and He Jingde won bronze 
in Women's Taiji and Men's Staff/Broadsword, respectively.

The Men's and Women's Sparring Set gold medals were won by the Shandong 
and Tianjin women's teams, respectively.  The 12 gold medals were divided 
up by 8 teams: Beijing, Guangdong, Tianjin, Shandong, Hubei, Hebei, Henan, 
and Sichuan.  The medals were divided up between these teams,  which means 
that their levels are very close. 

According to Coach Wu Bin, now that the competition is finished, the Beijing 
Team will spend 3 days to review their competition performance. Reviewing 
the experiences and lessons of the competition is the Beijing's secret training 
weapons.

At Shunde's Sports Center there is one group of different skin color,  different 
nationalities,  the "Allied Forces."  Actually, they are the Beijing Team's 
chearing group,  most are currently learning Chinese Wushu at the Beijing 
Team's training center and are taking advantage of this hard to come by 
opportunity to come down to Shunde to view a high level wushu competition. 
People joke that they are a 'hired army'.  They are all wushu lovers who 
came on their own from Australia, the US, France, Russia, etc.

Click for Beijing Team Pictures from Sinowushu.com

Articles not yet translated (if you can read Chinese):

http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/kongfu.shtml
http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/nf/20010824/tyxw/
http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/nf/20010823/tyxw/200108230006.asp
http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/nf/20010823/tyxw/200108230004.asp
http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/nf/20010824/tyxw/200108240210.asp
http://www.sportsonline.com.cn/GB/channel21/549/1039/1042/20010821/29392.html (NQ)

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