15-year-old Chinese diver wins gold, but she's not the youngest to do so
Medal count | Olympic schedule | Olympic news
All of 15 years old, Ren Qian has herself a shiny new gold medal from the Rio Olympics, via her sterling performance on the 10-meter platform. And here’s a stat that will stun you:
Ren Qian was born on Feb. 20, 2001. Feel old now?
She’s the youngest competitor so far to win gold at Rio, but not the youngest ever to medal in the Olympics, not by a long shot. Fu Mingxia of China won gold in 1992 at Barcelona about three weeks shy of her 14th birthday.
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For the record, the youngest competitor in Rio was Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh, age 13, who did not make it out of qualifying in the 100-meter backstroke. The youngest known Olympic medalist was Dimitrios Loundras of Greece, who won bronze at the team parallel bars in 1896. There may have been an even younger boy who served as cox for a medal-winning Dutch rowing team in 1900, but that youth’s identity and age have never been determined.
Regardless, the young Olympians of today know how to play every facet of the game, even the postcompetition quotes. “I did pretty well, but not really so perfect, according to my expectations. You can consider me a perfectionist,” Ren said after her dives. “I’m young, but I got the medal. I think from now on I’ll train harder, I’ll work harder so I can focus on my future.”
She’s got an awful lot of future ahead of her.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
