sports: June 2011

Thursday 30 June 2011

Kiira Korpi Finnish figure skater

Kiira Linda Katriina Korpi born 26 September 1988 is a Finnish figure skater. She is the 2007 and 2011 European bronze medalist, 2010 Trophée Eric Bompard champion and a two-time Finnish National Champion (2009, 2011).
Contents
* 1 Personal life
* 2 Career
o 2.1 Early career
o 2.2 2006-2009
o 2.3 2009-10
o 2.4 2010-2011
* 3 Programs
* 4 Competitive highlights
o 4.1 Post-2006
o 4.2 Pre-2006
* 5 References
* 6 External links
Personal life
Korpi was born in Tampere, Finland. Her father, Rauno Korpi, coached the Finnish women's hockey team to a bronze medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics. In Finland her nickname is Jääprinsessa (Ice Princess) due to her resemblance to Grace Kelly, the former Princess of Monaco. She is "widely regarded as one of the most beautiful woman in figure skating."
In addition to her native Finnish, Korpi also knows Swedish, English, and German. She does pilates or katanga yoga when she has time.
Career
Early career
Korpi began skating at the age of five, following her older sister. She landed her first triple jump, a salchow, when she was 11 or 12.
Korpi enjoyed some success as a junior skater, twice winning the junior national title and medalling at three junior Grand Prix events, including a gold in 2004. She won the silver medal at the 2005 Finnish Figure Skating Championships, qualifying her for the 2005 European Figure Skating Championships, where she placed 13th; she then competed at the 2005 World Junior Championships, where she came in tenth, her best finish at the event.
The following season, Korpi remained on the ISU Junior Grand Prix, but placed 3rd at the 2006 Finnish Figure Skating Championships, 6th at the 2006 European Figure Skating Championships, and then went on to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics where she finished in 16th place. Although she had placed 3rd at Nationals, the Finnish skating federation had used the results of the European Championships to determine the Olympic team. Korpi, despite being barely out of juniors, qualified with her finish.

Kiira Korpi

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Guo Jingjing Baoding, Hebei is a Chinese female diver

Guo Jingjing Chinese; pinyin: Guō Jīngjīng; born October 15, 1981 in Baoding, Hebei is a Chinese female diver from the People's Republic of China. She has won more Olympic medals than any other female diver and has won the 3m springboard event at five consecutive World Championships. She announced her retirement in 2011.
Contents
1 Career
2 Personal life
3 Major achievements
4 References
5 External links
Career
She took up diving when she was six years old at the Baoding Training Base. She started training in competitive diving in 1988, and was selected to dive for the Chinese national team in 1992. Guo first competed at the Olympics in 1996. Her coach leading up to the 2008 Olympics was Zhong Shaozhen.
During the 2004 Summer Olympics She won a gold medal in the 3 meter women's synchronized springboard along with Wu Minxia, before winning her first individual Olympic gold in the 3 meter women's springboard.
After the 2004 Summer Olympics, Guo became a Chinese national sports figure in the public eye, with a contract with McDonald's, as well as multiple other endorsement contracts. She was later banned by the national team for excessive commercial activities, but was later accepted back to the team when she agreed to focus on diving and give up many promotional activities. Guo is the leading member of the Chinese national women's diving team, and is known in China as "The Princess of Diving". Guo announced on November 23, 2006, that she would retire following the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Guo won two more gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. At the end of the Beijing Games, Guo became the most decorated female Olympic diver, and tied fellow Chinese athlete Fu Mingxia, and Americans Pat McCormick and Greg Louganis with the most gold medals (four). silver medal was awarded to Yuliya Pakhalina of Russia, whose score was 398.60, followed by Wu Minxia of China with 389.85 for the bronze medal. In synchronized diving, the defending champions Guo, and Wu, who won the event in the 2004 Athens Olympics and three World Championships, had led the entire competition in Beijing, winning the gold medal, with Yuliya Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdnyakova of Russia, who posted 323.61, winning Silver. Summer Olympics. She was quoted as saying, "I think I have fulfilled my task, so the London Games is not what I have in mind now. The chances should be left to other talents in the team.

Guo Jingjing

Yelena Isinbayeva early life and competition

Yelena Gadzhievna Isinbayeva Russian: Елена Гаджиевна Исинбаева, ISO 9: Elena Gadžievna Isinbayeva born 3 June 1982 is a Russian pole vaulter. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2004 and 2008), a five-time World Champion, and the current world record holder in the event. As a result of her accomplishments, she is widely considered the greatest female pole-vaulter of all time.
Isinbayeva has been a nine-time major champion (Olympic, World outdoor and indoor champion and European outdoor and indoor champion). She was also the jackpot winner of the IAAF Golden League series in 2007 and 2009. After poor performances at world championships in 2009 and 2010, she took a year-long break from the sport.
She became the first woman to clear the five-metre barrier in 2005. Isinbayeva's current world records are 5.06 m outdoors, a record Isinbayeva set in Zurich in August 2009, and 5.00 m indoors, a record set in February 2009. The former was Isinbayeva's twenty-seventh pole vault world record.
Isinbayeva was named Female Athlete of the Year by the IAAF in 2004, 2005 and 2008, and World Sportswoman of the Year by Laureus in 2007 and 2009. She was given the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports in 2009.
Contents
1 Career
1.1 Early life and competition
1.2 First world records and Olympic title
1.3 World and European champion
1.4 Second world and Olympic golds
1.5 Break and return
2 Reasons for success
3 Personal life
4 Major achievements
5 Results
6 Records
7 References
8 External links
Career
Early life and competition
From the age of 5 to 15, Isinbayeva trained as a gymnast in her hometown of Volgograd. She ultimately left the sport because as she grew she was considered too tall to be competitive in gymnastics, ultimately attaining a height of 1.74 m (5' 8½").
Six months after having taken up pole-vaulting she won her first major victory at age 16 during the 1998 World Youth Games in Moscow, Russia with a height of 4.00 m. It was her third athletic competition. She jumped the same height at the 1998 World Junior Championships in Annecy, France, but this left her 10 cm away from the medal placings.
In 1999, Isinbayeva improved on this height at the World Youth Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland when she cleared 4.10 m to take her second gold medal.
At the 2000 World Juniors Isinbayeva again took first place clearing 4.20 m ahead of German Annika Becker. The same year the women's pole vault made its debut as an Olympic event in Sydney, Australia where Stacy Dragila of the United States took gold. In the same event Isinbayeva did not make it out of the qualifying round.
She won another gold medal in 2001, this time at the European Junior Championships with a winning height of 4.40 m.
Isinbayeva continued to improve and 2002 saw her clear 4.55 m at the European Championships, where she gained her first senior championship medal (silver), finishing 5 cm short of her compatriot Svetlana Feofanova.

Yelena Isinbayeva

Jennie Finch early years

Jennie Lynn Finch born September 3, 1980 in La Mirada, Californi who occasionally uses her husband's surname Daigle, is a former American softball player who pitched for the USA national softball team and the Chicago Bandits. Finch helped lead Team USA to the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Time magazine described her as the most famous softball player in history. In 2010, Finch retired from softball to focus on her family.
Contents
1 Early years
2 College
3 2004 Olympics
4 2008 Olympics
5 National Pro Fastpitch
6 Media
7 Personal life
8 Retirement
9 Legacy
10 Career statistics
11 References
12 External links
Early years
Finch had been playing softball since the age of five and pitching since she was eight. Growing up, Finch was a bat girl for the University of California, Los Angeles. At La Mirada High School, Finch lettered four times in softball and twice each in basketball and volleyball. As a senior, she was the captain of all three sports. As a sophomore, she was an All-California Interscholastic Federation Division II choice in softball and All-Suburban League selection. Her father, Doug Finch, was her first pitching coach.
College
Finch played softball for the University of Arizona, where she was a three-time All-American pitcher and first baseman and two-time winner of Honda Sports Award.
In 2002, Finch set a new National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) record by winning her 51st consecutive game. She ended up with 60 consecutive wins breaking the previous record of 50 that was set by Florida State's Rebecca Aase in 1993. Finch's streak spanned nearly two seasons and included three straight wins in the 2001 Women's College World Series, where she won Most Outstanding Player honors. A near-capacity crowd filled Rita Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium and chants of "Jennie" echoed throughout the crowd in the 6–0 victory over Cal State Northridge. Finch said, "It's significant and it's nice. But it doesn't even come close to the team goal of winning a national championship."Finch recorded 24 wins in her freshman season; 29 in her sophomore season; 32 in her junior year, (with no losses, setting an NCAA record); and 34 in her senior season for a career total of 119 wins, 12th-most at the time. In that stretch, Finch struck out a total of 1,028 batters.
Her jersey number 27 (the date of her parents' first date) was retired by the University of Arizona in a pre-game ceremony at Hillenbrand Stadium on May 9, 2003.

Jennie Finch

vara Dushevina early life

Vera Yevgenyevna Dushevina Вера Евгеньевна Душевина; born 6 October 1986 is a Russian professional female tennis player. She was born in Moscow but now resides in Khimki, Russia. In 2006, she privately amended the presentation of her surname so as to be more English language friendly, adopting Dushevina in place of Douchevina which is a natural transliteration from her Russian script name.
Vera Dushevina at the 2008 US Open.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Tennis career
o 2.1 Early Years
o 2.2 2005–2009
o 2.3 2010–2011
* 3 Personal life
* 4 WTA Tour singles finals
o 4.1 Wins (1)
o 4.2 Runner-ups (3)
* 5 WTA Tour women's doubles finals (5)
o 5.1 Wins (1)
o 5.2 Runner-up (4)
* 6 Singles performance timeline
* 7 References
* 8 External links
Early life
Dushevina began playing tennis at the age of seven under her father, Yevgeny, an engineer. Her mother, Elena is a teacher.[citation needed]
Tennis career
Early Years
Vera played her first Main Draw match at the 2002 J&S Cup by qualifying but lost to Virginia Ruano Pascual 6–1, 7–6(2). She was able to win her first WTA tour match at the 2003 NASDAQ-100 Open, after qualifying she defeated Patricia Wartusch 6–0, 6–3 but lost to fourth seed Justine Henin 6–3, 6–2 in the second round. She then won her first professional tour title at the ITF in Innsbruck, Austria coming through the qualifying draw and defeating Melinda Czink 7–6(4), 6–2 in the final. In her next tournament she was able to reach her first WTA Tour semifinals at the 2003 Nordea Nordic Light Open including defeating her first top 50 player, world no. 35 Denisa Chládková 6–2, 6–3 but lost to Jelena Kostanić in the semifinals. She then played her first Slam main draw match after qualifying but lost to Ashley Harkleroad 6–4, 6–2 in the first round. In the 2003 Kremlin Cup she upset then world no. 28 Lisa Raymond 6–2, 7–6(4), but lost to 7th seed Vera Zvonareva 6–2, 6–1.

vera Dushevina