Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporter Yang Jing Correspondent Li Wenyao
Two days before the opening of the Tokyo Olympic Games, many athletes have begun to enter the Olympic venues for pre-competition training, including many post-00s young players. But the Olympic table tennis venues have welcomed a 58-year-old "grandma-level" female athlete, she is Ni Xialian, who has participated in the Olympic Games five times and won the world championship for the Chinese table tennis team, and she is also the oldest athlete in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
When Ni Xialian (left) won the World Table Tennis Championships 36 years ago, her mixed doubles partner Mladenovic was not yet born
Compared with Xu Xin, Liu Shiwen and other national players, Ni Xialian's name may be a little strange, in fact, she is an "old acquaintance" of the Chinese team. Ni Xialian, a native of Shengzhou, Zhejiang Province, was selected for the national team at the age of 16 at the 4th National Games in 1979 at the age of 16 for her outstanding performances.
At the 37th World Table Tennis Championships, Ni Xialian represented the national team, and partnered with Guo Yuehua, a national table tennis star, to win the mixed doubles world championship. The mixed doubles champion is also her only single-event world champion. After that, at the 38th World Championships, she partnered with Cao Yanhua to win the women's doubles runner-up.
However, after the 38th World Championships, with the growth of powerful players and the emergence of young table tennis talents, Ni Xialian gradually left the main position and withdrew from the national team. After that, she traveled to Europe and settled in Luxembourg. After becoming a Luxembourg citizen, she represented the Luxembourg national team and achieved outstanding results: three European Championship singles titles, three European Round of Twelve champions...
After joining the Luxembourg national team, in 2000, the 37-year-old Ni Xialian was able to participate in the Sydney Olympic Games and reached the round of sixteen in singles. Since then, she can be seen at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2012 London Olympic Games, and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
She is also known as Luxembourg's national treasure athlete, and at the closing ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, she also became the standard-bearer of the Luxembourg delegation.
Before participating in the Tokyo Olympics, Ni Xialian won the bronze medal in the women's singles of table tennis at the European Games, so she won the ticket to the Tokyo Olympic Games, and since then, she has become the oldest player in the Olympic Games, competing in the table tennis women's singles event, and even have the opportunity to compete directly with Chinese players Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha.
It is worth mentioning that the coach who accompanied Ni Xialian to the Tokyo Olympic Games this time was her husband. Perhaps it is this common hobby that the husband and wife have made her persist to this day.
The dream will not be old, at the age of 58, it is still possible to get a ticket to the Olympic Games through unremitting efforts, which is already a success, and I hope that Ni Xialian can gain something in this Olympic Games and achieve satisfactory results.
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Source: Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News