Despite losing in the preliminary round, Zhiying Zeng, 58, is happy with her Olympic debut. At age 58, she is one of the older Olympians, but she had dreamed of competing in the Olympics since she was a child. "Even when I was a little girl and they would ask me what my dream was, I would say: 'Become an Olympian,'" she told CNN. She called it the "biggest dream of my life."
Zhiying, who has been called the "table tennis Grandma," lost to Lebanon’s Mariana Sahakian in the preliminary rounds of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Zhiying, who represented Chile, didn't let the loss get her down. "I don't feel very sad, because this is sport," she told Reuters. "My husband, my sons, everyone I love and care about were there shouting my name. I feel so content."
Her path to the Olympics was not the most conventional. Born in China, she made the Chinese table tennis team when she was 16 years old. However, a paddle-related rule change "affected [her] game a lot," and she left the national team in 1986, she explained to CNN.
A few years later, she began coaching in Chile and took a break from competitive table tennis. She now owns a furniture company in Chile, per The Guardian, which she focused on for about 20 years before she started playing table tennis again. A lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic pushed her to pick table tennis up again after the long break. After the lockdown ended, she started competing again, and by 2023, she qualified for Chile’s national team.
In 2023, she competed in the Pan Am Games in Chile, which was an incredible experience for her. It reminded her of her time on the Chinese table tennis team when she was a teenager.
More from LittleThings: Serena Williams Calls Out 'Empty Restaurant' That Turned Her Away, And Restaurant Responds
"It had been a long time since I experienced something like this. I was like an excited teenager again. I forgot I was 56!" she told CNN.
In spite of her older age, her 92-year-old father was still able to witness her achieving her childhood dream. "He used to take me to training and to matches when I was a girl and now at 57, I made it. I made it," she told CNN, describing the day she qualified for the Olympics.
At the Paris Olympics, Zhiying also had the opportunity to reunite with a former teammate and friend, 61-year-old Ni Xialian. While she might not be able to compete in the Olympics again, she has achieved her dream and will continue competing.
"As long as my body is not injured, I'll still play. Even if I can't play at this level, I can still play at the Masters level," she told Reuters.
In Chile, she goes by the name Tania because her name can be challenging for Chileans to pronounce. After the 2023 Pan American Games, some people started calling her "Tia Tania" (Auntie Tania) or "the table tennis grandma.” Many have been inspired by her story and her unconventional journey to the Olympics.
"At my age, you have to play with happiness, not anguish," she told The Guardian. "I love this country. I didn’t reach my dream in China, and I have here. It’s important not to give up."
