Xiaoqing Li has a passion for gymnastics – and karaoke!
Xiaoqing Li has been coaching girls to be elite gymnasts and helping them to follow their Olympic dreams at Manly Warringah Gymnastics Club for about 14 years. The Dee Why resident is passionate about gymnastics and loves being a women’s artistic gymnastics coach.
Although, she could have been selling your house if gymnastics hadn’t called her.
“I would have loved to have been a real estate agent,” Xiaoqing says. “Helping people to sell their house or buy an investment property. I love watching house prices and interest rates. I just love it.”
Gymnastics beckoned when Xiaoqing was a four-year-old in Yunnan, China, where she was born in 1971. She completed a sports education degree in Beijing and represented China in international gymnastics competitions.
She started coaching in 1993 and guided the Chinese national gymnastics team at the Olympic Games in Sydney, 2000, before relocating from Beijing to Sydney in 2003.
Xiaoqing was honoured to be chosen as coach of the five-athlete Australian women’s artistic gymnastics team at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. “It was really exciting,” says Xiaoqing. “But I did feel a bit of pressure coaching the Australian team for the first time at the Olympic Games.”
The team finished 10th and missed out on qualifying for the team final by only 0.533 points.
Gymnastics in a family affair and Xiaoqing’s husband Ming ‘Lui’ Lu is also a coach at the club. A senior coach, he is also a gymnast and Xiaoqing says he is ‘famous’ in China for being a member the Chinese National Team. Their daughter, 16, is also a gymnast, but has stepped down this year to concentrate on her studies.
The club is currently based in Cromer, but construction has just started on the Manly Warringah Gymnastics and Multi-Sport Centre of Excellence at Nolan Reserve in North Manly. The new club is being delivered in partnership with Northern Beaches Council and jointly funded by the Federal Government, NSW Government, and the local community. The 3,500 square-metre centre will cater for everyone from beginners to Olympians.
Xiaoqing led the Australian team to the 2024 Paris Olympics
“It’s really exciting,” says Xiaoqing. “This is big, a dream come true. This will be the first elite women’s artistic gymnastics training facility in NSW. It will be a place where Olympic dreams can start, grow, and become real,” she says. “The new facility will give our gymnasts more space and more equipment. It will give them the best, from our youngest beginners to our top athletes preparing for competition.”
Xiaoqing says being a gymnast was tough at times, and it took determination and hard work. It can also be physically hard. Has Xiaoqing injured herself through her gymnastics?
“All the time,” she laughs. “Broken ankle, broken feet, dislocated my knee. You will always face injuries in gymnastics, but our number one priority, as coaches, is injury prevention.”
Xiaoqing enjoys visiting the beach, particularly Dee Why and Manly, though she doesn’t go that often. If she’s not at the club training future Olympians or enjoying the ocean air, you might find her singing.
She’s a karaoke queen and has it set up at home.
“I love karaoke,” says Xiaoqing. “I can sing, but not like a professional, it’s just a hobby.
I just love singing. When you’re happy or sad, you can just sing.”
