Xue Chen
| Xue Chen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Chen at the 2016 Summer Olympics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
18 February 1989 (age 27) Fuzhou, Fujian, China | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 191 cm (6 ft 3 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Honours
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Xue Chen (Chinese: 薛晨; pinyin: Xuē Chén; born 18 February 1989 in Fuzhou, Fujian) is a Chinese female beach volleyball player, measuring 191 centimetres (6 ft 3 in) in height. Her hometown is Fuzhou, but she trains in Sanya, Hainan. She has also trained in California under coach Dane Selznick.
Career
Xue began playing basketball as a child, but disliked the physical contact of that sport. She then played indoor volleyball from the age of 10 to 13 before settling into beach volleyball.[1] She began training for her sports career in 2000 at the Fuzhou Sports Training School. In 2002, she attended the Athletic Sports College of Fuzhou and became a member of the Chinese national beach volleyball team. Xue then made her Swatch-FIVB World Tour debut in 2005, playing in two events with You Wenhui and winning the FIVB Top Rookie award for 2006.[2]
Early 2006 Xue became the youngest player to ever win a major event, when on 28 May 2006 the 17-year-old won the $400,000 China Shanghai Jinshan Open.[3]
Later in 2006, Xue and Zhang Xi won the gold medal in the women's team competition at the 2006 Asian Games. The pair also won the bronze medal in women's beach volleyball at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The pair had great success in 2010, which included winning the Grand Slam in Moscow, Russia, for the second time. They also achieved an extraordinary gold-medal win on the FIVB World Tour Women's Final in Åland, Finland,[4] by snapping the record gold-medal winning-streak of Brazil's França–Silva duo on 21 August 2010. In 2009 they had won the gold medal in the Asian Beach Volleyball Championships in Haikou, China, and repeated the title in 2010. They then went on to win gold at the Sanya Open in Hainan, the Guangzhou Asian Games, and the Asian Beach Games. The team of Xue and Zhang are ranked 4th overall on the 2010 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Rankings and finished the season ranked first in the FIVB World Rankings. Xue and Zhang represented China in the 2012 London Olympics and ended 4th in the female beach volleyball competition.
Playing partners
- Zhang Xi 2010–present
- Zhang Ying 2008–2009
- Zhang Xi 2006–2008
- You Wenhui 2005
- Ren Zhengqing 2004
- Yan Ni 2003–2004
See also
- China at the 2012 Summer Olympics#Volleyball
- Beach volleyball at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament
References
- ↑ "Xue Chen Profile & Bio, NBC Olympics". Retrieved 2008-08-25.
- ↑ "Xue Chen: Career, Beach Volleyball Database". Retrieved 2008-08-11.
- ↑ "17-year old Xue Chen Captures SWATCH-FIVB World Tour Gold Medal". Retrieved 2008-11-10.
- ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 31 August 2010. Retrieved 6 September 2010.
| Awards | ||
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Preceded by Talita Antunes (BRA) |
Women's FIVB World Tour "Top Rookie" 2006 |
Succeeded by April Ross (USA) |