Picture Courtesy -- The Guardian
She even qualified for the national team and won a bronze medal at the Pan-American Games in 2023
They say age is just a number, and the Olympics have time and again proved this proverb correct. 58-year-old Zhiying Zeng’s story is another case that perfectly aligns with the meaning of the proverb. Raised in Guangzhou when ping-pong diplomacy was at its zenith, she became a young talent in the country's stringent training programme through the labyrinth of table tennis in the 1970s. However, one incident altered her life’s plan and she disappeared from the world of table tennis with any achievement in her name.
Now, four decades later, at 58, renamed Tania will make her debut in the Paris 2024 Olympics, representing Chile.
In this article, we will recall how Tania, at the age of 58, came to represent Chile in the Olympics.
Zeng was born into a family deeply rooted in tennis. Her father worked in engineering, while her mother was a table tennis coach. She gave Zeng an excellent table tennis foundation. At only 11, her exceptional talent was recognised, and she was selected for a junior elite team to train at a defence sports school in Beijing.
In 1981, the defence sports school dissolved because defence oversight in sports had ended, and thus, Zeng returned to her mother's coaching. Nevertheless, she did very well and was inducted into the national table tennis team in 1983, with Olympic competition in prospect. However, in 1986, the "two-colour rule" - insisting on using bi-colour paddles in the game - mainly affected her performance, and her career ended.
In 1989, Zeng started a new chapter in Chile after being invited by a coach to become a table tennis coach for school children. To experience a new life, Zeng emigrated to this far-flung foreign country and soon took the local name of "Tania" because it was hard to pronounce her name.
She focused her attention on coaching and settled into a close-knit community comprising people of her motherland in northern Chile. In 2002, her interest in table tennis was again fired up by her son's interest in the sport. She began taking him to the local table tennis club to persuade him away from video games. Her return to the sport was quickly recognised as she competed in local tournaments.
Despite the brilliant restart in her table tennis career in 2002, Zeng never thought of fighting for a place on the national team of Chile. When the 2020 pandemic happened, Tania’s passion for table tennis doubled as there was nothing else to do inside the four confined walls of her house amid stringent lockdown. Lizama, her friend and coach, calls her a "global example" because, in less than a year, she was able to secure a first place at the Sudamericanos 2023.
She even qualified for the national team and won a bronze medal at the Pan-American Games. Presently ranked 151st by the International Federation, she has earned a place on the Chilean national team via qualifying tournaments in her geographical zone. Whether Tania wins a medal or not, she has proved that determination and hardwork can do wonders. When she takes the table under the high ceiling of the Arena Paris Sud, fans around the world are bound to cheer for her even if they are not all Chileans.
