Gymnastics Career
He Kexin trained at the Shichahai Sports School in Beijing since 1997. She participated in China's National Games in 2006 and Intercity Games in 2007. According to China Daily, He was recruited for the Chinese National Team in 2007, after her uneven bars win at the Intercity Games drew the attention of head coach Huang Yubin.
He made her international debut in 2008, participating in several events on the World Cup circuit. At her first meet, the World Cup in Doha, she scored 16.550 on the uneven bars; at her second, the Cottbus Cup, she scored 16.800. The mark was the highest uneven bars score posted at an international event under the current Code of Points, besting Nastia Liukin's mark of 16.65 at the 2008 Pacific Rim Championships. On May 15, 2008 He participated in the Tianjin World Cup, breaking two world records.
At the 2008 Olympics, He was a member of the gold medal-winning Chinese team. In the uneven bars final, she and American Nastia Liukin both posted final marks of 16.725, and earned identical A and B-panel scores of 7.70 and 9.025, respectively. Because He's individual B-panel marks had a lower variance, she won the gold medal as per the Olympic tiebreaker rules of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG).
He Kexin is currently an event specialist on the uneven bars. She intends to diversify into an all-arounder following the Olympic season. In the 2009 World Championships held in London, she defended her bars title and won a gold medal with a score of 16.000, with a 7.1 D-score. It is important to note that the 2009–2012 Code of Points counts the top 8 elements (instead of the top 10 elements as were previously counted) in the routine towards the D-Score. Thus, D-Scores around the world have dropped since 2008.
During the team finals in the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, He Kexin contributed the highest score of the night to her team total, 16.133 with 7.4 difficulty, it was the highest difficulty for the entire London Olympic period in all four piece of apparatus and the 16.133 scores on bars was also the highest ever achieved at the same time. But a fall in the event final, left her way out of the medals and unable to defend her world title. In the qualifications of the 2011 World Gymnastics, He Kexin fell once and had a major dead hang and didn't make the event final. Although she did not compete in any event in the team final, He remained on the China team which eventually won the Bronze medal.
He was named to the 2012 Olympic team over 2008 teammate Jiang Yuyuan and 2011 World team member Tan Sixin, because her speciality was regarded as better complement to the 4th team member, Deng Linlin. At the Olympics, she qualified in second place to the uneven bars event final. She finished the final in second, behind gold medalist Aliya Mustafina of Russia, with a score of 15.933, which makes her the only chinese female gymnast who had medalled in the same event at two consecutive Olympics.
Furthermore, she is the one of only five chinese female gymnasts who had ever made for two Olympics, together with her seniors Liu Xuan, Kui Yuanyuan, her 2008 team capitan Cheng Fei and her long term teammate Deng Linlin.
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