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Great Athletes

Fu Mingxia

by R. C. Lutz

Sport: Diving

Early Life

Fu Mingxia was born August 16, 1978, in the small town of Wuhan, Hubei Province, along the Yangtze River in central China. She was the second of two girls in a poor family. Ironically, Fu, the family name, means financial prosperity in Chinese. Mingxia started diving around the age of seven, even before she knew how to swim. In late 1987, Yu Fen, a female diving coach from Beijing, visited Wuhan in search of young divers with potential for success. Yu selected nine-year-old Mingxia and three other aspiring athletes, and officials made arrangements for them to move to Beijing for training and competition with the national diving team.

Fu Mingxia diving in the three-meter springboard event during the 2000 Olympic Games at Sydney.

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(Sean Garnsworth/Getty Images)

The Road to Excellence

Sports for young Chinese athletes were tied to success in studies at sports school. Three years after her start in diving, Mingxia had become an athlete with obvious promise.

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As a participant in a 1989 competition in Seattle, Washington, Mingxia became the youngest champion in the history of diving. Her performance at the meet gave her wide exposure, and she received attention as a potential medal contender for future Diving World Cup and Olympic competitions.

The Emerging Champion

Twelve days prior to her official twelfth birthday, Mingxia competed in the 1990 Goodwill Games in the United States. The platform diving title at the competition brought the spotlight to Mingxia; she defeated Olympic platform champion Xu Yanmei of China and Olympic bronze medalist Wendy Lian Williams of the United States. Mingxia became an immediate celebrity in China, enjoying a life of travel and parties. On the other hand, she was able to see her family only two times a year. Even at Chinese sports meets that her parents attended, they could not meet.

Mingxia’s platform title initiated changes in the rules for Olympic competition. The International Swimming Federation (FINA), the governing body for aquatic events, passed a rule that mandated that a diver must turn fourteen in the year of competition in order to take part in the Olympics, World Diving Championships, or Diving World Cup meets. This ruling was ironic, as, up to this point, Chinese authorities had tried to portray Mingxia as young as possible. As a result, the ruling limited Mingxia to competition within China and forced her to miss the 1991 Diving World Cup.

One month after the 1990 Goodwill Games, Mingxia competed in the Asian Games. The combination of her young age, celebrity status, and reduced training time took its toll, and she fell to a third-place finish with a score of 465.33. After this dose of reality, she returned to the pool for hours of practice and intense training under the watchful eye of Yu. Three months later, Mingxia rebounded to win the world title.

In January, 1991, Mingxia captured the platform-diving world title with an impressive score of 426.51 at the World Aquatics Championships held in Perth, Australia. The competition was significant for all of China: Mingxia and her teammates collected eight gold medals—four for swimming, four for diving—at the championships. China placed second in the medal standings. Mingxia earned an additional honor from her homeland when she was named one of the twenty best swimmers and divers for China in 1991.

Mingxia set her sights on the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. Spain. If she won a gold medal, she would be the second-youngest Olympic diving champion in history. On the day of the platform finals in Barcelona, she was still officially thirteen years old but would turn fourteen, the required age, one week after the closing of the Games. Thus, she met FINA requirements.

At the 1992 Summer Games, Mingxia charmed the world with her grace and flawless performances on the 10-meter platform. Her sweet smile came forth each time she popped out of the water to the thunderous applause of spectators. She selected the toughest optional dives of any woman at Barcelona, and the gamble paid off. She won the gold medal for her performance with a score of 461.43, beating the runner-up by 49.80 points.

Continuing the Story

After the 1992 Olympics, Mingxia remained in Beijing, still residing with Yu. Training schedules and competition limited her opportunities to return to Wuhan to visit her parents and sister. Her incredible success continued after Barcelona. She won the World Diving Championship in the 10-meter platform competition in 1993, 1994, and 1995, as well as the World Diving Championship in the 3-meter springboard in 1995. She exceeded all expectations in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, when she became only the fourth woman in Olympic history to win the gold medal in both the 10-meter platform and the 3-meter springboard competitions.

After the Olympic Games, Mingxia retired from diving to study economics at Qinghua University in Beijing. After two years she returned to the pool, diving for her university’s team. With a less strenuous schedule, comparable to that of Western athletes, and with weekends off, she found renewed enjoyment in athletics. Mingxia rejoined the Chinese national team in time for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

At the 2000 Olympic Games, Mingxia extended her medal streak, adding the gold in the 3-meter springboard and the silver in the synchronized 3-meter springboard. After her triumph at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Mingxia continued her studies in Beijing. In November, 2001, at the Chinese National Games, she performed her last professional dives and then retired.

The same month, Mingxia met Antony Leung Kam-chung, then the financial secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Born in 1952, divorced but childless, Antony won Mingxia’s heart in a whirlwind romance. The couple was married in Honolulu, Hawaii, on July 15, 2002, a date in Chinese tradition that symbolized changing the past and moving to a new era. In February, 2003, Mingxia gave birth to a baby daughter at Hong Kong’s Queen Mary Hospital. In December, 2004, she had her first son.

In May, 2005, Mingxia was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. While supportive of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Mingxia did not play a major role in part because in April, 2008, she gave birth to her second son.

Summary

For divers and spectators throughout the world, Fu Mingxia was a delightful athlete to watch. Her pleasant attitude, friendliness, and obvious enjoyment of life contributed to her popularity and made her a model representative of a new generation of Chinese athletes. By the age of twenty-two, Mingxia was a veteran of three Olympic Games, the youngest Olympic champion, and the first female diver to win four Olympic gold medals. With her decision to quit diving in 1996 until granted a less rigorous training schedule and by winning at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Mingxia demonstrated great independence of spirit.

Additional Sources

1 

Barnes, Simon. “Fu the Bearer of Eternal Flame.” The Times (of London), August 9, 2008, p. 75.

2 

Kristof, Nicholas. “At Fourteen, a Diver Reaches New Heights.” The New York Times, May 4, 1992, p. C8.

3 

Levinson, David, and Karen Christenson, eds. Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient to Present. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1996.

4 

Montville, Leigh. “Fu’s Gold.” Sports Illustrated, August 12, 1996, 66.

5 

Pucin, Diane. “Sydney 2000/Summer Olympics Games, Fu Makes a Splash in Record Books, Not Much in Pool.” Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2000, p. U4.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Lutz, R. C. "Fu Mingxia." Great Athletes,Salem Press, 2009. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Athletes_1983.
APA 7th
Lutz, R. C. (2009). Fu Mingxia. Great Athletes. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Lutz, R. C. "Fu Mingxia." Great Athletes. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2009. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.