Liu was coached by Guo Xinming and Zhang Zhen. She took up gymnastics with encouragement from her mother, who had to stop training when her gym closed during the Cultural Revolution. In fact, Liu's decision to continue training for another four years after a disappointing performance at the 1996 Olympics (where she failed to make the beam final because of a fall in the team competition) was partly to realize her mother's unfulfilled dream.[citation needed]
In 2000, Liu became China's first Olympic champion on balance beam, as well as its first all-around medalist in women's gymnastics. She also led the Chinese team to a third-place finish, but in 2010, their bronze medal was stripped by the International Olympic Committee and awarded to the United States instead after one of the Chinese team members, Dong Fangxiao, was found to have been underage during the competition.[1][2] In March 2012, the bronze medal Liu and her teammates won at the 1999 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships was forfeited to Ukraine for the same reason.[3]
Post-gymnastics career
At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Liu served as the on-site gymnastics reporter for Hong Kong broadcaster TVB.
In July 2009, she became a contracted actress for TVB.[4]
Liu was the first female gymnast to perform a one-arm giant swing on the uneven bars; she also performed this skill into a Geinger release move. The skill is named after her in the Code of Points,[7] but because it was considered too risky for women, it was given a low difficulty rating to discourage gymnasts from attempting it.[citation needed] As a result, Liu stopped performing it after the 1996 Summer Olympics.
