Leng Xueyan

Leng Xueyan (Chinese: 冷雪艳; born 1972)[nb] is a Chinese former track and field athlete who competed in the 400 metres hurdles. She was the Asian Games champion in 1994 and runner-up at the Asian Athletics Championships in 1993. She set a personal best of 54.52 seconds in 1993. She was also an Asian Games gold medalist in the 4×400 metres relay.

Leng Xueyan
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing  China
Asian Games
Gold medal – first place1994 Hiroshima400 m hurdles
Gold medal – first place1994 Hiroshima4×400 m relay
Asian Athletics Championships
Silver medal – second place1993 Manila400 m hurdles
In this Chinese name, the family name is Leng.

Career

Leng's first international medal came at the 1990 Asian Junior Athletics Championships held in Beijing. She won the 400 m hurdles gold medal with a time of 57.79 seconds. This stood as the championship record for over a decade, finally being broken by another Chinese hurdler, Wang Xing, in 2004.[1] She emerged as a senior athlete at the 1993 Chinese National Games with a performance of 54.52 seconds to claim third place in a race won in an Asian record by Han Qing.[2] This time ranked Leng tenth in the world for the event that season.[3]

Her senior international debut followed a few months later at the 1993 Asian Athletics Championships. At the competition in Manila she led the Chinese challenge in the 400 m hurdles and took the silver medal behind Kazakhstan's Natalya Torshina.[4] In 1994 she won her first and only national title at the Chinese Athletics Championships with a time of 56.28 seconds.[5] This gained her selection for China at the Asian Games later that year.

Leng defeated both Torshina and Hsu Pei-Ching of Chinese Taipei to become the Asian Games champion in the 400 m hurdles. She was the third Chinese woman to win the title, after inaugural winner Chen Xin (諶欣) and Chen Juying, who had won the previous edition.[6] Her winning time of 55.26 seconds was an Asian Games record which lasted for twenty years. It was finally bettered in 2014 by Kemi Adekoya (a Nigerian-born runner for Bahrain).[7][8] Originally, Leng had finished as runner-up to Han Qing, who was subsequently disqualified and banned for doping.[9] She ran the lead-off leg of the 4×400 metres relay in a Chinese team of Zhang Hengyun, Cao Chunying and Ma Yuqin and the quartet won the gold medal in a Games record of 3:29.11 minutes (Leng's second of the tournament).[10] Despite being only 22 years old, this was the last major medal of her career and 1994 was the last time she ranked in the top twenty athletes globally.[11]

National titles

International competitions
YearCompetitionVenuePositionEventNotes
1990 Asian Junior Championships Beijing, China 1st 400 m hurdles 57.79 CR
1993 Asian Championships Manila, Philippines 2nd 400 m hurdles 57.02
1994 Asian Games Hiroshima, Japan 1st 400 m hurdles 55.26 GR

Notes
  • nb There are conflicting sources for her birthdate, with the IAAF listing 14 February 1972 and other sources listing 11 January 1972.[11][12]

References
  1. Asian Junior Championships. GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  2. 7th National Games medallists Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine (in Chinese). jx918. Retrieved on 2013-03-30.
  3. Leng Xueyan. Brinkster. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  4. Asian Championships. GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  5. Chinese Championships. GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  6. Asian Games. GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  7. Minshull, Phil (2014-09-30). Hadadi's discus hat-trick makes Iran happy at the Asian Games". IAAF. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  8. 17th Asian Games – HURDLE RACES – New champions will emerge. Asian Athletics Association. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  9. Chinese hand out long bans. The Independent (1994-12-21). Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  10. Women's relay medallists Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine. Incheon2014. Retrieved on 2014-10-04.
  11. Xueyan Leng. Brinkster Track and Field. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
  12. Xueyan Leng. IAAF. Retrieved on 2015-11-14.
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