The Chinese diving team is the dream team of Chinese sports and the gold medal winner of Chinese sports in the Olympic Games. From the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics to the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Chinese diving team won a total of 40 gold medals in nine Olympic Games, making outstanding contributions to Chinese sports.
The Chinese diving team has produced many outstanding talents, such as Gao Min, Fu Mingxia, Guo Jingjing, Wu Minxia, Chen Ruolin, and other famous players who are known as the "Diving Queen". This time talk about a male diver. He participated in the Olympic Games four times and won three gold medals, xiong Ni, known as the "prince of diving".
Xiong Ni was born in January 1974 in Changsha, Hunan. Xiong Ni is a very talented diver with good understanding, fine technique, high churning, fast rotation, beautiful posture and small splash. In 1981, at the age of 7, Xiong Ni began practicing diving and entered the provincial team the following year. In 1986, at the age of 10, Xiong Ni won four championships in the National Diving Championships, shocking the world and was immediately selected for the Chinese national diving team.
In 1988, at the age of 14, Xiong Ni competed in the Seoul Olympics. Although Xiong Ni is young, he is not afraid of the stage at all. Xiong Ni's main competitor is Loganis, known as the "Emperor of Diving". At that time, Xiong Ni was practicing 10 meters of jumping platform. Loganis broke his head in the preliminaries, and after some simple treatment, he re-entered the game. Before the final jump, Xiong Ni's total score was still more than 3 points ahead of Loganis and was at the top of the table. The last jump bear Ni completed the action flawlessly, while Loganis was slightly flawed. However, because of the injury of Loganis in the preliminaries, and his reputation gave a lot of emotional points. His last-jump referee scored high marks. Although Xiong Ni jumped a total of 637.47 points, he still trailed Loganese by 1.14 points and finished second, winning only one silver medal. However, Xiong Ni's performance shocked the diving team, and everyone remembered the 14-year-old athlete and called him the "uncrowned king". Xiong Ni became famous in the First World War.
In 1989, Xiong Ni won the Men's World Cup Jump Championship. Xiong Ni participated in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, but unfortunately performed poorly and only won the bronze medal in the 10m platform.
In 1995, due to the transfer of the team, Xiong Ni switched from the original 10-meter platform to the 3-meter springboard. This shift helped him a lot. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Xiong Ni won the gold medal in the three-meter springboard, becoming the first Olympic gold medalist in the Chinese diving team to win the gold medal in the men's three-meter springboard diving. After three Olympic Games, Xiong Ni finally won an Olympic championship.
Xiong Ni retired in 1997 after winning the men's 3m springboard championship at the Eight Games. At that time, the Chinese men's diving team was at a low ebb, and the athletes were not picking up. At that time, Russia (then the former Soviet Union) had a Sauddin known as the "Diving Tsar". This person was born in March 1974, 2 months younger than Xiong Ni, very powerful. The players behind Xiong Ni are difficult to be Sauddin's opponents. Xiong Ni had no choice but to make a comeback in May 1998 to deal with Sauddin exclusively.
Sauddin is a very strong character in both the 3m board and the 10m platform. He has won 5 gold medals at 5 World Championships and 2 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze medals at 5 Olympic Games. After Xiong Ni's comeback, he encountered many difficulties. Mainly a variety of injuries, coupled with age, physical fitness is not good, Xiong Ni always has a cold, once training almost fainted in the pool.
Fortunately, Xiong Ni still successfully participated in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, participating in the single 3m board and the double 3m board. Saudin, who is about the same age as Xiong Ni, is like a superman, participating in the 3-meter board single and double and 10-meter platform single and double events.
In the first 3-meter springboard final, Xiong Ni was at one point behind Sauddin by more than 30 points. Xiong Ni was not moved, resisted the pressure and chased round after round, and jumped out of the high score continuously. Sauddin felt the pressure under Xiong Ni's close pursuit, and his mistakes increased. Sauddin made a serious mistake in the final round, scoring just over 60 points. This gave Xiong Ni a chance. Xiong Ni completed the action perfectly, surpassing Sauddin by more than 6 points in the last minute, and 0.3 points more than second place Mexican player Fernando Platas. Xiong Ni staged a big reversal and won the gold medal on the 3-meter board, while Sauddin only won the bronze medal. This is the first diving gold medal won by the Chinese sports delegation at the Olympic Games.
With a single 3m board diving gold medal, Xiong Ni let go. Later, he cooperated with Xiao Hailiang on the 3-meter double board, and the two jumped very smoothly, winning the men's 3-meter springboard double championship with a score of 365.58 points. The silver medal was taken away by Sauddin and his teammate Alexander Dobroscock, who scored 329.97 points. Xiong Ni's perfect performance impressed Sauddin, and after the game, Sauddin deliberately shook hands with Xiong Ni and congratulated Xiong Ni. Sauddin also won the bronze medal and gold medal in the 10m platform singles and the gold medal in the doubles at the Olympic Games.
Xiong Ni retired in 2001. In his sports career, he participated in four Olympic Games, won 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze, and reached 16 world championships.
Xiong Ni chose to enter politics after retiring from the army. In 2004, Xiong Ni served as the dean of Hunan Sports Vocational College, and in January 2007, he was officially appointed deputy director of the Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau and deputy secretary of the party group, becoming the youngest deputy departmental cadre in Hunan Province. In January 2020, Xiong Ni, deputy secretary of the party group and deputy director of the Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau, was elected as the chairman of the fifth committee of the Hunan Football Association.
In 2007, Xiong Ni and Li Jingman, who had been in love for nearly ten years, received a marriage certificate, and Li Jingman was once an international student who returned from school and looked very beautiful. Xiong Ni is a super football enthusiast. In 2003, Xiong Ni and some amateur football enthusiasts cobbled together to form the Hunan Sports Football Team. Xiong Ni is the founder, leader and main striker of this team. Later, Li Jingman served as the general manager of Hunan Xiangtao Football Club, which was also related to Xiong Ni's hobbies. In 2012, Lee Kyung-man resigned as general manager of Xiangtao Club due to pregnancy. The two had a son after marriage and lived a very happy and satisfying life.