yang wei won the silver medal in the individual all-around competition and won the gold in the team event at the 2000 olympics in sydney.
in 2003, he again won the gold in the team event and silver in the all-around competition at the 2003 world artistic gymnastics championships in anaheim.
at the 2004 olympics in athens, his world championship winning team finished fifth after many of them fell.
yang returned to form at the 2006 world artistic gymnastics championships in aarhus, by winning gold in the team event, individual all-around and parallel bars competitions. he also won gold medal in the team event, individual all-around, rings and parallel bars competitions at the 2006 asian games.
he successfully defended his team and all-around titles at the 2007 world artistic gymnastics championships in stuttgart.