Victory at the start
Historic! “Table tennis grandma” is unstoppable
61-year-old table tennis player Ni Xia Lian won her match on Saturday against Sibel Altinkaya from Turkey, who is 30 years her junior. A historic performance that had thousands of enthusiastic spectators on the edge of their seats.
At around 11.25 pm on Saturday, there was no stopping the crowd in the Paris table tennis arena. Around 6,000 spectators jumped up from their seats and celebrated their 61-year-old superstar. The "table tennis granny" beat her Turkish opponent 4:2. No one has ever been older than the Luxembourger when winning an Olympic table tennis competition.
This is the sixth Olympic Games for Lian, who was born in Shanghai. Her first appearance was in Sydney 2000. She celebrated her first success at the 1983 World Championships in Tokyo, where she became world champion in the mixed doubles and team events.
The secret of a long career
Although she is twice as old as most of her opponents, she also has twice as much experience, joked the 61-year-old after her historic victory. The secret of her long career is a balanced diet and prudent training, adapted to her body and her age.
However, the Luxembourgian now has a huge hurdle to overcome in Paris. On Tuesday, Lian will be up against the world number one Sun Yingsha from China. Although the 61-year-old continues to play furious table tennis, her Olympic adventure should come to an end.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.