58-Year-Old ‘Table Tennis Grandma’ Zeng Zhiying fulfills Olympic dream at Paris games despite loss
Zeng Zhiying, 58, made her Olympic debut for Chile last weekend, almost 40 years after she missed out on being selected to represent China in Los Angeles 1984.
Amid a Paris Olympics partially defined by Gen-Z TikToks and emerging teen superstars, one table tennis player is showing fans that there’s a place at the Games for seniors, too.
Zeng Zhiying, 58, made her Olympic debut last weekend, almost four decades after she missed out on being selected to represent China in Los Angeles 1984. Zeng is now representing Chile. Though the athlete, affectionately dubbed the “table tennis Grandma,” lost in the preliminary round on Saturday, bringing her Olympic journey to a close, she says still looking up.
“I don’t feel very sad, because this is sport,” Zeng told Reuters. “My husband, my sons, everyone I love and care about were there shouting my name. I feel so content.”
Zeng, the oldest person to debut in Olympic table tennis, lost to 46-year-old Mariana Sahakian of Lebanon 4-1. Zeng said that despite the loss, the match was a dream come true.
“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.
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