Liu Tingting (; born September 6, 2000, Guangdong) is a retired Chinese artistic gymnast and the current team captain of the Chinese women's national artistic gymnastics team. She is best known for her innovative, quick connections and high degree of difficulty in balance beam and uneven bars. She is the 2018 World champion, the 2019 World silver medalist, and the 2017 Asian champion in balance beam, and the 2018 Asian Games and 2019 Chinese national champion in the uneven bars. She has also often competed in the all-around event in her senior career, where is the 2017 Asian champion and a two-time Chinese national (2019, 2020) champion.
Junior career
2013 Liu's national senior level competition debut was at the 2013 Chinese National Championships. Representing the province of Guangdong, she qualified in fifth place at the all-around final and seventh place in the balance beam final. Initially, she qualified as the alternate in the floor exercise final, but ultimately entered the final after Jiang Tong withdrew. In the team final, Liu contributed counted scores in all four events and ultimately won the silver medal. She then placed sixth in the all-around final, where she was the top-scoring junior. She concluded the competition with an eighth-place finish in the balance beam final and a fifth in the floor exercise final.
Liu also competed at the senior-level 2013 National Games, a multi-sport event with nearly 10,000 participating athletes, where she placed fourth with her provincial team.
2014: Junior National Champion
Liu made her international debut the following year at the 2014 Pacific Rim Championships in April, where she won a bronze medal with the team and qualified to all five junior individual finals. She recorded the fifth-highest total score in the junior individual all-around behind Bailie Key, Nia Dennis, and Norah Flatley of the United States and countrywoman Luo Huan, although after Flatley's exclusion due to the two-per-country rule she placed fourth. She then placed third in the junior uneven bars final behind Luo and Key and seventh in the junior vault, balance beam, and floor exercise finals. These championships were the first of many events throughout Liu and Luo's careers where they competed together, often placing closely in the all-around and event finals.
Liu then competed at the senior-level 2014 Chinese National Championships in May. She led her provincial team to the silver medal, once again contributing counting scores in every event. Her vault and uneven bars scores were both top-five among all gymnasts in the team final. She then placed ninth in the individual all-around final, sixth in the uneven bars final, and fifth in the floor exercise final. She won her first individual national medal by placing third in the balance beam final behind Shang Chunsong and Bai Yawen.
Liu dominated at her final competition of the year in June, the National Junior Championships. She won the all-around, uneven bars, and floor exercise titles, placed second in vault behind Liu Jinru, and second in balance beam behind Zhang Wenxin.
2015
Liu's first major competition of the year was the 2015 Chinese National Championships at the end of May, marking her third time competing at the senior-level championships. Liu qualified in second place to the all-around final, behind only Wang Yan, third place to the uneven bars final behind Fan Yilin and Tan Jiaxin, and fourth place to the floor exercise final. In the team competition, Liu once again led the Guangdong provincial team to the podium, winning a team bronze medal. In the all-around final, a fall on the balance beam caused her to place sixth, although she was still the top-placing junior athlete ahead of Luo Huan. In event finals, Liu placed eighth in uneven bars and fifth in floor exercise.
Liu competed two weeks later at the national junior championships, entering as the defending champion. She qualified to the all-around final in first place and to all four event finals. She then placed second in the team final with her provincial team, which included for the first time Chen Yile. In the all-around final, Liu defended her title to win the gold medal, placing three points ahead of runner-up Luo Huan. In event finals, Liu performed very well. She placed first in balance beam, second in uneven bars behind Luo, third in vault behind Liu Jinru and Zhang Jin, and fourth in floor exercise. Interestingly, Liu Tingting, Luo Huan, Chen Yile, Zhang Jin, and Liu Jinru were the five members of the world championships team three years later.
Based on her results at the senior- and junior-level national championships, Liu was selected to compete at the Junior Japan International in September, a major international meet for junior-level competitors. Although she was considered a podium threat for the all-around, mistakes in the floor exercise in the all-around final ultimately resulted in a fifth-place finish. She then placed fifth in the uneven bars final, but then concluded her competition by rebounding to win the gold medal in the balance beam, ahead of American junior national champions Laurie Hernandez and Jazmyn Foberg. This marked Liu's first international gold medal.
Liu's final junior competition was the National Youth Games, a quadrennial multi-sport event for Chinese athletes under the age of 21, in October. Although Guangdong did not field a full team, Liu individually won gold medals in the all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam finals. She had the top score in every single event in the all-around final, and the highest difficulty score in both event finals. She also placed third in floor exercise. These results cemented Liu as a contender for the Chinese team in the coming Olympic year.
Senior career 2016: Debut
After competing at the junior level for three years nationally and two years internationally, Liu made her senior debut at just 15 years of age at the 2016 Chinese National Championships in May. In the first round, Liu performed very well, qualifying to the all-around final in second place behind reigning national champion Shang Chunsong and to three event finals: bars in second place, beam in third place, and floor in sixth place. In the all-around final, Liu fell on her double-twisting Yurchenko vault and made mistakes in beam, ultimately finishing in third place by more than a point behind Shang and just two tenths behind Mao Yi. In event finals, Liu won the silver medal in balance beam, once again behind Shang. She finished fifth in uneven bars after a mistake in her pirouette, and fifth in floor exercise with a clean routine.
The following week, Liu was named to the nominative roster for the 5-member Chinese Rio de Janeiro Olympic women's artistic gymnastics team along with 2015 World Championships team members Shang Chunsong, Mao Yi, Fan Yilin, and Wang Yan. However, on July 18, it was announced that she had suffered a hand injury while training on uneven bars and would be replaced by 19-year-old Tan Jiaxin, a two-time World team silver medalist in 2014 and 2015. Liu did not compete for the remainder of the season.
2017: Asian All-Around Champion
Liu's delayed senior international debut finally came at the 2017 Melbourne World Cup in February, where she competed alongside Olympian Wang Yan and Luo Huan. Liu qualified first in balance beam, second in floor exercise, and third in uneven bars. She went on to place first in uneven bars ahead of Huan and Rianna Mizzen of Australia, first in balance beam ahead of reigning Olympic Champion Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands and Emily Little, and third in floor exercise behind Australians Little and Georgia Godwin.
In March, Liu competed again on the World Cup circuit alongside Wang Yan and Luo Huan, this time at the event in Doha. In qualifications, Liu once again advanced to three event finals by placing second in uneven bars, first in balance beam, and first in floor exercise. In event finals, she fell in the uneven bars to place fourth behind Luo, Zsófia Kovács of Hungary, and Georgia-Rose Brown of Australia. She rebounded to win the gold medal in both balance beam, ahead of 2004 Olympic Champion Catalina Ponor and Luo, and floor, ahead of Emily Little and Croatian Ana Đerek.
In May, Liu competed the all-around for the first time in over a year at her fifth consecutive Chinese National Championships. She qualified in third place to the all around final, competing a full-twisting Yurchenko vault as opposed to the double-twisting Yurchenko she competed in 2016, and qualified to the floor exercise final in first place. In the team final, Liu's Guangdong provincial team won gold by a large margin ahead of Beijing, marking Liu's first gold medal at the senior national championships. She was one of the favorites to win the all-around title along with top qualifiers Luo Huan and provincial teammate Chen Yile, but pulled out of the all-around final after a minor injury. She returned for the floor exercise final and won the silver medal behind Olympian Shang Chunsong.
Two weeks later, Liu competed at the 2017 Asian Championships in Bangkok, Thailand as a member of the Chinese team alongside Luo Huan, Liu Jinru, and Tan Jiaxin. They won the team gold medal by nearly ten points ahead of North Korea and nearly 20 points ahead of Japan. In the all-around final, Liu recorded the top score in uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise to win the gold medal over reigning national all-around champion Luo and qualify in first place to those three event finals. This win marked Liu's first senior and first international all-around title. Her score in the balance beam in the all-around of 15.300 was the top international score on the apparatus of the entire 2017 season. In the event finals, she placed second in uneven bars behind Luo, first in balance beam ahead of Luo, and fourth in floor exercise in a tie with Luo. These results made Liu, Luo, and Kim Su-Jong of North Korea the most decorated female athletes of the championships, with four medals each.
In September, Liu was named to the nominative roster for the Chinese team for the 2017 World Championships to compete the all-around alongside Luo Huan, with specialists Wang Yan and Fan Yilin rounding out the team. Shortly after, Liu competed as a member of the Guangdong provincial team at the 2017 National Games. She upgraded to a double-twisting Yurchenko vault for the first time since the 2016 National Championships and contributed performances in all four events in the team final to the gold medal. In the all-around final, Liu recorded the top score in beam and won the silver medal behind junior provincial teammate Chen Yile and ahead of Wang and Luo. In event finals, she placed eighth in bars, fourth in beam behind juniors Li Qi, Chen, and Tang Xijing, and third in floor behind Wang and Chen.
Although Liu was considered to be a contender for an all-around medal and a frontrunner for the balance beam title at the start of the World Championships in Montreal, Canada, an ankle injury suffered during training limited Liu to just competing in the balance beam in the qualification round. While she qualified into the balance beam final in seventh place, she ultimately placed seventh in the final with a tentative routine due to her injury. While Liu's routine difficulty relied primarily on connecting many skills for bonuses, the injury forced her to pause between many of her skills. As such, her awarded difficulty score (5.5) was a full point less than the score she received when healthy (6.5) at the Asian Championships in May.
2018: World Balance Beam Champion