Career
She competed during the early 1990s, and retired in 1994. Here, she pioneered the exceptionally difficult and innovative 11⁄4 turn on back in kip position, to which the skill is named after her. No other gymnast has been able to perform the maneuver with as many spins.
Li made her international debut at the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle, USA, where she wowed the world with her trademark 11⁄4 back spin on the beam, as well as a rare German giant into a Tkatchev on the uneven bars. The following year, she competed at the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis where the Chinese team placed fourth. At the 1992 Olympic Games, Li finished 14th in the all-round, and made the bars final where she placed eighth (9887).
Again the Chinese women finished fourth in the team competition. Li Li took the early lead in the all-around of the 1993 World Championships in Birmingham after performing on her best event, the beam. She stunned the crowd with a Yurchenko loop followed by the 11⁄4 back spin, and scored 9.837, the second highest score awarded on that night (Tatiana Lysenko got a 9862 on her first vault).
Li dropped to ninth place overall in the end after mediocre performance on other apparatus. Without the deduction, she would have taken the silver. Another favorite for the gold, Shannon Miller, had a disastrous performance, falling from the beam twice and sitting on her dismount (7850).
The gold went to Lavinia Miloșovici (9850), who had a simple and plain routine in comparison to Miller's and Li Li's. She was in the 1994 World Championships in Brisbane but failed to make the beam final, qualifying second in the preliminaries (9237). She retired from the sport soon after.
She is now a women's gymnastics coach at Buckeye Gymnastics in Westerville, OH.
