Friends familiar with table tennis know that professional players in this sport will have a significant decline in status when they are close to the age of 30, especially the athletes of the Chinese team, because their training volume is much greater than that of other association players, so the retirement time is relatively earlier, the Olympic champion, the world champion is also difficult to remain evergreen after the age of 30, and the figure like Ma Long is simply rare.
But there is such a national table tennis star, she won the world championship title 39 years ago, when she was 20 years old, and then went abroad to develop, has been playing until the age of 59 and still has not retired, and even last year at the age of 58, she also appeared on the podium of the World Table Tennis Championships and won a medal, which is really breathtaking!
Looking back on the past, this old predecessor has never forgotten his roots, and said bluntly: "I have a bottom line in doing things, the motherland will always be the motherland, I just married to Luxembourg, and I am the daughter-in-law here." ”
Her name is Ni Xialian, she was a teammate of Guo Yuehua, Cai Zhenhua and Cao Yanhua, and she was a generation older than Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui and others.
Ni Xialian was born in 1963 in Shanghai, China. Although she showed her talent in table tennis very early, but affected by the times, her development was not very smooth at the beginning, until she was 13 years old, she finally entered the Shanghai Youth Sports School to learn ball, and then with her excellent performance in the National Games, she was selected for the national team and began the journey of winning glory for the country.
In the early years, Ni Xialian and many national table tennis players were like the straight-shot positive rubber playing method, but with the rise of the circle, she gradually found her own lack of competitiveness, after all, at that time, the women's table tennis direct shooting fast attack has gradually declined, like the "big devil" Cao Yanhua and other people of the same era later changed to anti-glue playing, so Ni Xialian also explored new methods in difficulty.
Under the guidance of the coach, Ni Xialian finally found a different way out, that is, one side of the glue, the other side of the long glue, "inverted plate" exchanged with each other to achieve the purpose of rotating changes to confuse the opponent, the effect is very good.
Soon, Ni Xialian once again achieved good results in the national competition, and at the same time qualified for the World Table Tennis Championships, and finally won the gold medal of the women's team and mixed doubles, realizing the dream of world champion.
However, the competition in the Chinese table tennis world is so fierce, although a special playing player like Ni Xialian can confuse the opponents of the foreign association with her outstanding strengths, it is difficult to avoid the fate of becoming a sparring partner when facing her teammates, so although she ushered in the peak of her career at the age of 20, she then began to decline.
Soon, Ni Xialian retired like many of her peers, but this did not dampen her passion, and as a result, she made a bold decision in the late 80s, that is, to continue playing abroad and continue her ping-pong dream!
After several turns, Ni Xialian finally settled in the small country of Luxembourg at the junction of Germany and France, where the table tennis team is not even a European powerhouse, and the national table tennis is incomparable, Ni Xialian enjoys the comfortable life in the local area, and more importantly, she also harvested her own love, and her partner and coach Tommy Danielsen entered the palace of marriage.
Since then, Luxembourg has one more citizen, but as Ni Xialian herself said: the motherland is still the motherland, and she is only married to Luxembourg!
After going abroad, Ni Xialian soon ushered in a new starting point in her career, not only won the European championship 6 times, but also realized her dream of national table tennis, that is, to participate in the Olympic Games.
Since 2000, Ni Xialian has played in a total of 5 Olympic Games (2000, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2021), although she did not achieve good results, but do not forget that she was already a 37-year-old veteran when she first played, the most recent time she was 58 years old, it is already very remarkable to appear on the field, how the result is really not important.
Moreover, in the 2021 WTT Slovenia Competition, Ni Xialian broke out of the super cold door and pulled down Wang Yidi, the main force of the active national table tennis; at the Houston World Table Tennis Championships, Ni Xialian and her partner Denut won the women's doubles third place together, once again shocking the table tennis world - the last time she was on the podium of the World Series was 36 years ago.
No one knows how many more years Ni Xialian will hold out, and no one knows how many miracles she can still create. But as Ni Xialian said after losing to 17-year-old South Korean teenager Shin Yubin at the Tokyo Olympics: "If you win, you continue to fight, and if you lose, just take a vacation!" "For her, happy ping-pong, there is no end: tribute to the legend, come on!