On the women's singles table tennis competition of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, an old aunt with kind eyebrows and good eyes strode into the arena. At first glance, I thought the old aunt had gone to the wrong set. In fact, no, this 58-year-old aunt is named Ni Xialian, she is a player representing Luxembourg, and she is also the oldest athlete in this Olympic competition.
We all know that athletes are affected by various factors such as age and injury, and their careers are not long, and there are very few like Ni Xialian who can still appear on the Olympic field at the age of 58. So, how did Ni Xialian do it?
Ni Xialian was born in Shengzhou, Zhejiang in 1963 and later moved to Shanghai with her parents.
When Ni Xialian was born, table tennis, as China's "national ball", was setting off a trend of playing ball throughout the country. Whether it is in the alley, or the school or the institution, as long as there is a field, everyone will find a way to support a simple table, you come and go, anyone can swing a few rackets.
Ni Xialian has been interested in table tennis since she was a child, and she also learned to play table tennis with a racket. Later, her parents saw that she was interested, so they let her go to Shanghai Amateur Sports School to learn to play table tennis. Unexpectedly, this fight, Ni Xialian came out of the hall of fame.
In 1978, the skilled Ni Xialian was selected by the Shanghai table tennis team to start her table tennis career. She played particularly well with her left-handed straight shot, performing very well in a few domestic matches. So a year later, she successfully entered the national team.
In 1983, the 37th World Table Tennis Championships was held in Tokyo. The 20-year-old Ni Xialian partnered Cao Yanhua in the women's doubles and defeated the Japanese national in one fell swoop to win the championship. Later, when she played in mixed doubles, she tacitly cooperated with Guo Yuehua and won the mixed doubles championship again.
At that time, "left-handed" Ni Xialian was already one of the main players in the national team with her cunning and fierce playing style, and she also hoped to continue to win the championship, so she trained very hard.
However, at the 38th World Table Tennis Championships in Gothenburg in 1985, a strange thing happened that made her dream come to naught.
It turned out that Ni Xialian had always been a partner with Cao Yanhua, and the two had always cooperated tacitly in international competitions, almost winning all the women's doubles gold medals. As a result, in the women's doubles final of the 38th World Table Tennis Championships, Cao Yanhua, who won two championships in women's singles and mixed doubles, made frequent mistakes in the women's doubles final, and finally let Dai Lili and Geng Lijuan win the gold medal in women's doubles, while she and Ni Xialian only won the silver medal.
Of course, a few years later, Cao Yanhua also mentioned that game in his autobiography.
She said that because she was a maverick in the national team, the leaders had a lot of opinions about her. Therefore, when selecting the team members of the 38th World Table Tennis Championships Women's Team Competition, He Zhili, Dai Lili, Tong Ling and Geng Lijuan were deliberately selected. And she is the number one athlete in the world table tennis rankings, but she was not selected.
At the same time, in addition to the leaders having opinions about her, there are two people who often sue her in front of the coach. One is He Zhili, and the other is Ni Xialian.
Why did they sue? Because Cao Yanhua is not a member of the women's team, she can only be a sparring partner. He Zhili said that Cao Yanhua was perfunctory during sparring, worse than the sparring hired from the men's team. Ni Xialian, in order to take the position, please the leader, and constantly say bad things about her in front of the coach.
Therefore, in order to take a bad breath, Cao Yanhua deliberately lost in that doubles match to retaliate against Ni Xialian.
After returning to China, Cao Yanhua announced his retirement.
Of course, years later, Cao Yanhua personally admitted that she played match-fixing in retaliation. But she also believes that Ni Xialian's talk to the coach may not have denigrated her, but only her speculation.
Affected by this, Ni Xialian also had to withdraw from the national team that year.
At that time, under the influence of reform and opening up, many people went abroad to develop. Ni Xialian also took a plane to Germany, preparing to look for opportunities abroad.
In a foreign country, Ni Xialian is very lonely. In addition to studying, she spends time playing table tennis.
Unexpectedly, Ni Xialian's ball skills shocked the Germans. They found that this little oriental woman was really too powerful, no matter how powerful the opponent, fighting her was to find abuse. Therefore, in addition to admiring her, everyone also gave her a nickname of "Queen of Oriental Table Tennis".
As the fame spread farther and farther, neighboring Luxembourg threw an olive branch to Ni Xialian. They offered Ni Xialian favorable conditions, hoping that Ni Xialian could help Luxemburg play the game. At the invitation of Ni Xialian, she went to Luxembourg.
Soon, Ni Xialian found that although Luxembourg is a very beautiful place, there is no atmosphere of playing table tennis there. A golfer like her, there is simply no match for an opponent there.
Just when Ni Xialian was about to retreat, tommy, the Swedish coach who accompanied her, said to her: "There is only one Ni Xialian in the world, you should let the whole world see you!" ”
It was this sentence that made Ni Xialian change her mind. Since then, Tommy has become her sparring partner, and the two have studied their skills while playing. During that time, Ni Xialian had a full understanding of European tactics, and her skills were rapidly improved. Originally, she only ranked 60th in the world table tennis rankings, but after many competitions, she advanced to the top 10 with absolute strength. And she and Tommy also in the continuous training and learning, established a deep friendship, the two eventually came to fruition, into the marriage hall.
Ni Xialian first defeated European celebrities such as Batofy in the European Championships and won the women's singles championship. She then won the mixed doubles final with Poland's Braszczyk 4:0.
Since Luxembourg is a small landlocked country, sports are not dominant in the world, and there are not many table tennis players. So although Ni Xialian is getting older, she is still the strongest table tennis player in the Luxembourg national team. As a result, she got a lot of opportunities to participate in international competitions, such as the Olympic Games.
On the eve of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, under the persuasion of the Luxembourg Sports Bureau, the 37-year-old Ni Xialian decided to go to the Olympic Games to make a face, which was also her first time to participate in the Olympic Games. To her delight, she also reached the women's singles round of 16, a result that made her feel more satisfied.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Ni Xialian once again represented Luxembourg in the Olympic Games. Among the delegates, she was the only one who was relaxed, without the sense of urgency of the contestants. As soon as she saw the reporter, she happily pulled up her family routine and generously introduced herself: "My name is Ni Xialian, and I am a native of Shanghai. ”
In the women's singles competition, Ni Xialian also worked very hard, and whenever she won a ball, she cheered like a child. However, after all, the young people are too powerful and are quickly eliminated. However, Ni Xialian was not sad, but took Tommy around the city of Beijing.
Originally, Ni Xialian thought that at her age, it was no longer suitable to participate in the game, so after returning to Luxembourg, she proposed to the national team to retire. As a result, the people of the Luxembourg Sports Bureau went to the door for three days to do ideological work for her, after all, for a while and a half, where to train a high-level table tennis player?
Ni Xialian had no choice but to take out the racket that had been put away and continue to participate in various competitions.
In the years that followed, Ni Xialian participated in the London Olympic Games, the Rio Olympic Games, the European Championships and the World Table Tennis Championships.
Although Ni Xialian had to admit that the years were old, the strength she had cultivated over the years not to accept defeat made her take every ball seriously when playing, no matter how backward the score was. In her words, she would never let her opponent win too easily.
In 2015, the 52-year-old Ni Xialian defeated Japanese international Ai Fukuhara 4:3 at the Itttennis Federation Croatia Open, shocking the table tennis world for a while.
In 2017, Ni Xialian played extremely fiercely with Chinese national Ding Ning in the third round of the women's singles of the World Table Tennis Championships, and the score was also tied several times. Although Ni Xialian lost the game in the end with a score of 0:4, her spirit of not accepting defeat and not obeying the old age touched all the fans.
In 2019, Ni Xialian met Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen in the mixed doubles competition of the World Table Tennis Championships. Looking at the two Chinese athletes who were the same age as her children, Ni Xialian felt very kind. In the game, Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen never dared to take it lightly, whether it was defense or offense, they all cooperated very tacitly.
However, Ni Xialian and her partner Mladenovic are also going all out. In the process of playing, Ni Xialian flew straight over with a ball, right in the face of Xu Xin. At that time, Ni Xialian herself smiled embarrassedly.
In the end, Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen ended the showdown with a score of 4:0. After the game, Ni Xialian also shook hands with Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen, and in the later games, she never forgot to cheer them on.
In 2021, the 58-year-old Ni Xialian once again qualified for the Tokyo Olympics through hard work, which is already her fifth time participating in the Olympic Games. At this time, Ni Xialian was already very detached about whether she could get the rank. After all, at her age, she has always insisted on being on the playing field, which is a success.
A reporter asked Ni Xialian if she would participate in the next Olympic Games. Ni Xialian said with a smile that as long as her body can still move, she will continue to persevere. Because she is a Chinese, she hopes to show the spirit of Chinese table tennis players to the world through her.
At the same time, she also lamented that Chinese table tennis players are really too powerful, and she hopes that Chinese table tennis players can get more gold medals!
Ni Xialian said this is too good, she has created miracles in the history of table tennis, we wish her to create more miracles!