Mo Huilan: From a gymnastic champion to a celebrity

Mo Huilan, ethnic Zhuang, was one of China's most successful gymnasts in the 1990s. She is known for performing routines of exceptional difficulty and technique, but also for inconsistency.

Mo Huilan

Both Mo Huilan and her fraternal twin sister, Mo Huifang began gymnastics in 1985 in Guangxi Province. In 1990, they were invited to attend a camp in Beijing to test for admission to the Chinese national training center. Huifang was accepted; Huilan was not. However, showing the determination that would serve her well in her competitive career, Huilan talked the coaches into allowing her to remain in Beijing with her sister. Eventually, Huifang was injured and retired from gymnastics; Huilan, in contrast, thrived and improved.

Mo made her international debut at the 1993 Cottbus Cup, where she placed a modest sixth in the all-around. The next year at the Asian Games, however, she nearly swept the competition with gold medals in the team, balance beam, uneven bars, and vault and a bronze in the all-around.

She came to the attention of the international gymnastics community at the 1994 World Championships in Brisbane, Australia, where she achieved a seventh-place finish in the all-around final, the highest of any Chinese gymnast. Although she placed out of the medals on floor exercise, her routine, which was choreographed to Leroy Anderson's "Typewriter Song", was a hit with the audience. Her performance on the uneven bars, where she debuted her own version of the Gaylord salto, also gained recognition and appreciation.

At the 1995 World Championships in Sabae, Mo shone. She won three medals: silver in the team competition and the uneven bars final and gold on the balance beam. Her preliminary scores qualified her in first place for the all-around, but errors on beam and floor dropped her to fifth place in the finals.

Mo was expected to be a major medal contender at the 1996 Olympics. However, the competition would prove to be disappointing for the entire Chinese team. Errors in the prelims kept Mo from qualifying for the beam and bars event finals; mistakes and falls from several of her teammates kept the Chinese squad from earning a medal in the team competition. In the all-around, Mo was in first place going into the last rotation, floor exercise. She stepped out of bounds on the floor and dropped to fifth place, out of the medals. Her one bright spot at the Olympics came in the vault event finals, where she earned a silver medal behind Romania's Simona Amanar.

After the Olympics, Mo participated in exhibitions and shows in the United States before returning to competition. She continued to compete through the 1997 season. However, after less than stellar performances at the World Championships and other meets, she quietly retired from gymnastics.