Event
Balance beam
Skill type
Mount
Value
C
Known as
Li
Hand-Li
Beam healy
Handstand swingdown
Named after
Li Yan or Li Yifang or Li Li (CHN) – 1989 or 1991
About
OK, we have to talk about the Hand-Li, and it’s going to take a while, so everybody just shut up their mouths.
First of all, the FIG doesn’t know what Chinese people are. This is well established, settled science. This mount is officially named after Li Yifang, but she never did it. She did perform a handstand with swing down like this at the 1991 World Championship and 1992 Olympics, but it was in the middle of her routine. She never did it as a mount. She was also preceded in doing that by Li Yan, who first did it at the 1989 World Championship in the middle of her routine. Their teammate, Li Li, did perform this skill as an actual beam mount at the 1991 worlds and 1992 Olympics, as did 1992 beam silver medalist Lu Li. There is a 100% chance the FIG thinks all four of them are the same person.
Second of all, but…wh-wh-who should it be named after? So here’s what we think is going on. The Li first entered the code as a hand support element, not in the mounts section, in the updated edition for the 1993-1996 quad. That should be for Li Yan since she did it in the middle of her routine at 1989 worlds before any of the others had made a team, but it seems it was attributed to Li Yifang.
In the 2006 code redo, a bunch of the hand support elements were thrown out the door, but this technique was instead added to the mount section, where swinging down out of both the handstand and the full-twisting handstand mounts now included the reference “(Hand-Li).”
This was never meant to award both entire mounts as named skills to Li—whichever Li she may be—but to reference the swing down aspect of these mounts as being what is seen in the Hand-Li.
In creating a named-skill list for the next edition of the code in 2009, however, someone skimmed through the code to check where there were identifying names listed in parentheses after elements, saw “(Hand-Li)” sitting there at the end of the full-twisting version, and assumed that was the eponymous name for this mount. So, a beam mount to handstand followed by a full turn and swingdown then became the “Hand-Li Yifang” despite the fact that Li Yifang never did this as a mount, never did it with a full turn in handstand, and didn’t do it first.
For the 2022 update to the code, in which a number of famous mistakes were fixed, it appears the powers that be realized that Li Yifang never did the full turn in handstand (nor did Li Li or Li Yan). Li Yifang’s name was removed from that version and instead given to the first one, the non-turning version. But still, it’s a mount named after her that she never did.
But as it turns out, that is a mount that Li Li did at 1991 worlds. So if the women’s technical committee does intend to name this mount for its originator, it should be the Li Li rather than the Li Yifang. If they want to add it back to the hand support section and name it after the skill’s overall originator in any context, it should be the Li Yan.
Third of all, and probably most importantly, “Hand-Li.” This element spent a solid three decades being known as the “Hand-Li” instead of just the “Li.” Question #1) For why? Because…her name is Li and she did the element with…her hand? Unless she got married to Theresa Hand and wanted to symbolize their union with a name change, I don’t understand why we’re saying this is a Hand-Li. Because we don’t do this. We don’t name elements after a significant body part used during them. It’s not a Foot-Biles. Or a Pubic-Rulfova. It’s just a Biles. And a Rulfova.
Also, if any new skill from this quad were going to be the Hand-Li in the 1993 code update, wouldn’t it be the German giants that Li Li got named after herself on bars? I mean, if you want a hand-based element…bars.
So anyway. Everything’s fine.