On August 13, the Chinese women's gymnastics team took their first Olympic gold in the Beijing Games. Led by veteran Cheng Fei, the six girl gymnasts scored 188.900 points in four events. Just the day before, the Chinese men's gymnastics team won back the Olympic gold medal that they lost four years ago in Athens. In the process China became the first country to clinch both men's and women's team gold medals in Olympic gymnastics in 16 years.

Men: making a come back

The men's team finished fifth, their worst result in history, in the Athens Olympics. Performances riddled with errors scuppered their medal chances, and many team members thought of retiring after returning to Beijing. In that year, 24-year-old Yang Wei wanted to quit. Huang Xu, the captain, also considered to end his career. Olympic gold medallist Li Xiaopeng was seriously injured and could not train even he wanted to.

Reviewing the failure in Athens, Gao Jian, Director of the Gymnastics Management Center under the State General Administration of Sport, thought it was a series of ripple effects that came from poor preparations. Huang Yubin, head coach of the Chinese men's team, tried to persuade the veterans to stay. "Have you achieved your dreams yet? You can take advantage of your edge under the new scoring system and new rules. You can perform better if you practice more in the training," Huang said to his team.