Yuan Wenqing

Yuan Wenqing founded modern wushu by example. He set wushu's standard practice in the first Asian Games. Previously known for his explosive speed and power, he won numerous national and international competitions in the eighties and early nineties, including the first Asian Games in 1990. He is considered by many as a bridge between traditional Chinese martial arts and modern wushu for his successful integration of traditional and modern techniques at a level of fluidity, technique, and explosiveness that had not been seen before, and which has yet to have been matched today.

He is a former Shanxi wushu team athlete trained by the coaches Pang Lin Tai and Zhang Ling Mei. He became the standard that other athletes were judged by in the nineties: his personal long fist and staff forms were famously made into the compulsory wushu guiding forms which other athletes had to perform and compete in.