Biography
Cheng was born to a working-class family in the Hubei province of central China. She began gymnastics at the age of three and by the age of ten, she was invited to join the Hubei provincial team. In late 2001, at the age of 13, she was accepted to the Chinese National Team. Her coaches are Lu Shanzhen and Liu Qun Lin. She only sees her family once per year, but communicates with them via text messages.
Competitive history
Cheng Fei is a vaulting and floor exercise specialist. She had a lot of national success in gymnastics as a two-time Chinese National Floor Exercise Champion , a two-time Chinese National Vault medalist and the 2004 Chinese National Balance Beam Champion.
Internationally, she has been very successful as well. She finished 4th on floor exercise at the in Athens, Greece. She was the bronze medalist at the 2004 World Cup Final on floor exercise.
In 2005, Cheng made history at the 2005 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Melbourne, Australia, for being the first gymnast ever to successfully perform one of the most difficult vaults ever attempted by a woman. The vault consisting of: a round-off onto the springboard, a half-turn onto the vaulting horse and a 1 1/2 somersault with a 540-degree turn in a straight body position, is now officially recognized in the FIG Code of Points as "The Cheng."
At the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, she competed on vault and floor exercise, qualifying in first position for both event finals. She contributed those exercises to the Chinese team toward their victory in the team championship and also went on to win the World title on both vaulting and floor exercise. Cheng also won the gold medal on the vault at the 2006 World Cup Final in S?o Paulo, Brazil.
In 2007, Cheng began the year by winning the vault, balance beam and floor exercise titles at a World Cup event in Maribor, Slovenia. She was undefeated on vaulting and floor exercise in 2007 until the 2007 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. At those championships, Cheng was recognized as the leader for the Chinese women's team and though Cheng won her third World title on the vault, she made a serious error on the vault during the team championship where the Chinese team finished 2nd. She went on to finish 5th on floor exercise after making a large error in her final tumbling series of the exercise.
Cheng fulfilled her goal of competing at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China as the captain to the Chinese team. She led the team to win China's first-ever women's gymnastics Olympic team championship. Individually, she won a bronze medal on vault and another bronze metal on balance beam and placing 7th in the floor exercise event final.
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