At 58, Chile's Zhiying Zeng Gears Up For Her Olympic Dream

Zhiying Zeng is a China-born table tennis player whose Olympic dream will finally come true after a 35-year wait later this month. The 58-year-old athlete started her table tennis career in 1970s China and retired in 1986 at 20 years old with the unfulfilled aspiration of competing in the Olympic Games. However, Zeng restarted the game during the pandemic and will now represent Chile in table tennis at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Dreams do come true!

Who Is Zhiying Zeng?

Zeng was born in 1966 in Guangzhou, China, to an engineer father and a mother who was a table tennis coach. Table tennis is thus in Zeng's blood, with her mother honing her skills from a very young age. 

According to an article by The Guardian, Zeng was admitted into a junior elite team at a military sports school in Beijing at only 11 years old. At this time, table tennis as a sport was incredibly popular in China, and professional sports were supervised by the People's Liberation Army.

She was even selected as a member of China's national table tennis team around 1983, when her dream to participate in the Olympics almost came true. However, when the ''two-colour rule'' was introduced as a mandate for players to use double-coloured paddles, Zeng could not adjust to the change, having played with single-coloured paddles her whole life.

She thus retired and became a coach at a school in Chile, later opening up a cloth export business. 

Zeng's journey to the Olympics 

She got back into the game during the COVID-19 pandemic, practising at home with her family. 

Her efforts paid off when she secured bronze with her team at the Pan-American Games in 2023. She won this in the women's segment of table tennis at the Games, hosted in Chile, despite being the oldest athlete in the tournament. 

More recently, her victory at regional events in Chile led her to finish in the top eight in the entire Americas region. She thus qualified for the Chilean national table tennis team and will finally be able to realize her dream of playing at the Olympics. It just goes to show how age and time don't matter. When you are really passionate about something, you will succeed in it. 

Zeng is now training for at least three hours a day for the tournament later this month, setting an example for young athletes across the globe.

She said, ''At my age, you have to play with happiness, not anguish. I love this country. I didn’t reach my dream in China, and I have here. It’s important not to give up.''