Gymnast of the week takes a break from highlighting U.S. National champions and travels across the world to feature a Chinese great, Yang Wei.

Yang was born in 1980 and first began gymnastics at age 5. His first international competition for China was in 1997. Yang’s first real gymnastics success came at the 1999 at the World Championships where he was on the gold medal winning Chinese team and where he placed 3rd on high bar. Yang continued to wow the gymnastics community at the 2000 Sydney Olympics where Yang helped the Chinese men win the team gold and he placed second in the all-around.

Yang’s success continued through the new millennium. At the 2002 World Championships, Yang took third place on vault and at the 2003 World Championships, the Chinese men took the team gold and Yang received the silver in the all-around. While the beginning of the 2000’s proved to serve Yang well, his career truly took off after the 2004 Olympic Games. At the 2006 World Championships, the Chinese men redeemed themselves from the painstaking 2004 Games and won the team gold medal, and Yang captured the gold medal on parallel bars and the all-around. In 2006 he also won the all-around, rings, and parallel bars titles at the 2006 Asian Games. Then again, in 2007 the Chinese men took the team gold medal and Yang again won the all-around gold medal. Yang continued to thrive in 2007 and won the all-around and rings titles at the Chinese National Championships.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was Yang’s true Olympic spotlight moment. He not only was on the gold medal Chinese team, but he won the individual all-around title, took second on rings, and placed fourth on pommel horse.

Yang officially retired from gymnastics in 2009, after his success at the 2008 Olympics. Along with Yang’s success at the Olympics Games in 2008, he married his gymnastics sweetheart, Yang Yun. Yang is still remembered today for his high difficulty on all six events and his gymnastics is well respected throughout the gymnastics community.

Here is Yang's silver medal ring's routine from teh 2008 Beijing Olympics!