all-around star

From gymnastics to singing, it seems that whatever she turns her hand to, Liu Xuan strikes gold

By KT Wong

© Beijing Action China Advertising Co.Ltd

Life has come full circle for Liu Xuan, China’s first Olympic balance beam champion. The former athlete-turned-actress-turned TV show host is entering a new phase in her decade-long career in the public eye and once again finds herself in the Olympic arena.

“My motto is that you have to constantly reinvent yourself to improve,’’ says Liu. “Having trained as an athlete from a very young age, i kind of grew up with the belief that if you put your heart into it, then anything is possible. if you give your best you’ll be rewarded in the end.”

And, as the 29-year-old heads to Beijing on a one-month assignment to cover the Olympics for Hong Kong’s Television Broadcast (TVB), she’s already setting her sights on a full-time singing career after the Games. Liu is closely monitoring public reaction to her two recently released singles based on the Olympic theme. At the helm of her first single – a pop-rock number entitled Chu Fa that tries to paint a picture of what goes on in an athlete’s mind ahead of the Olympics – is none other than Paul Wong Koon-chung, arguably Hong Kong’s biggest living Rock ’n’ Roll legend.

“He’s just an amazing musician and a great artist and i feel extremely lucky to have the chance to work with him,’’ says Liu of the former Beyond vocalist and guitarist. She even admits to having been a long-time fan of the band and Wong, who has since gone on to enjoy a successful solo career.

“As soon as i signed with my record company i asked my agent if there was any chance i could get him to help with my songs. it turned out the company’s owner was a good friend of his, so he said yes right away. The whole process was very smooth.

“i think it also helps that Paul is a Thai boxing fan and knows what competitive sport is all about. Having been in a real boxing match himself, he knows what it’s like to be an athlete and can relate to me. it was easy for us to communicate and it only took me a little time to explain to him what i wanted with the song.” nicknamed Xuan Mei Ren (Putonghua for Xuan Beauty) by mainland Chinese media, her detractors believe Liu has forged a successful TV career on the back of her good looks alone.

But while her beauty is ideally suited to the showbusiness world, it was of little consequence when she was competing, with Liu instead having to draw on her determination and mental strength to succeed.

“When i won the gold medal [in the 2000 Sydney Olympics] i think i proved what persistence and hard work can help you achieve,” says Liu of her famous victory, which came after a disappointing showing in Atlanta four years previously.

“When i won i actually think my coach and my parents were even happier because they’d sacrificed so much for me throughout all those years. But, looking back, i really couldn’t have dreamt of a better ending to my career.”

Like many of her gymnastics peers, Liu’s route to the top was not without it share of twists and turns. She was just eight when she first caught the eye of the coach of the province. This came after her parents enrolled the diminutive changsha-native in a health and fitness class because, ironically, she “wasn’t one of the healthiest kids in town”.

“contrary to some reports, my mother actually never wanted me to go into the sport and was very much against the idea of me becoming a professional gymnast,” says Liu. ‘That’s probably because back in her time, potential gymnasts had to go through a lot of hardship with little reward. She just wanted me to grow up healthily and happily.”

“it was actually my father who gave me the biggest push in taking gymnastics seriously. He was the first one in my life who taught me how to face up to, and overcome, challenges. He wanted me to achieve what my mother had always wanted for herself because he knew that was what, deep down, she really wanted.”

And there would be no shortage of challenges in her career, with the biggest coming after the 1996 World Championship in Puerto Rico. There, Liu performed a one-arm giant swing on the uneven bars, the first time a female gymnast had incorporated such a move during competition. That prompted the international Federation of Gymnastics to name the move after Liu in the sport’s Code of Points.

Then, in a controversial decision that would have disheartened even the toughest-minded competitor, the federation ruled that the move was too risky for women gymnasts and gave it a lowly ‘C’ difficulty rating – an effort to discourage others from attempting it.

“i felt that was unfair to me because after you’ve spent so much sweat and time mastering something, to have someone take it away from you like that was really difficult to accept,” says Liu. “it’s like when you try to innovate but are discouraged from doing so because nobody else can do it.”

As fate would have it, Liu exacted her revenge in the sweetest possible fashion. Four years later, in addition to winning on the balance beam and leading China to third in the women’s team category, she became her country’s first female all-around medallist. That came after Romania’s Andreea Răducan was stripped of her gold medal following a failed drug test, moving Liu up a spot from her original fourth position.

While many of her fellow athletes have chosen to stay in their field after retirement, Liu set out on a different path. in 2001, after quitting the national team aged 22 – a senior citizen by gymnastics standards – Liu enrolled at the prestigious Beijing University, where she would graduate four years later with a degree in journalism and communication.

Alongside that, she even found time to earn herself another accreditation – Liu is now a qualified gymnastics judge, though she’s too young to officiate at this year’s Olympics.

“i know about some athletes who are struggling with their lives after retirement,” she says. “The way i see it, you have to treasure every opportunity because they tend to slip away easily when you don’t take them seriously – even for those who were once famous.”