Some 16 years after her last Olympics appearance, the 58-year-old Li isn’t done with table tennis just yet.
Written content by ZK Goh via the Olympic Channel
You’re never too old to try. That’s what New Zealand’s Chunli Li wants you to know.
The 58-year-old four-time table tennis Olympian has her sights firmly set on taking part in a fifth Olympic Games next year if she qualifies – 17 years after her last appearance at Athens 2004.
Now, nearing her 60s, the tenacious Li isn’t ready to call it quits just yet.
On the contrary: She aims to return to the top of the world stage, she suggested.
“On court, I still feel quite young. My body still feels in good shape and I don’t have any injuries, and I’m quite fit. I think age is a natural thing, it is just a number. I don’t think it is necessary to think about this problem all the time,” she told the Olympic Channel.
Pioneer
Li spoke to the Olympic Channel via video call late on a Wednesday evening from Auckland, where she lives and runs a table tennis club.
But living in Auckland was never in her plans.
Growing up in Guangxi Province in China, table tennis had not yet been included the Olympics and so it was never on Li’s radar. In 1981, seven years before table tennis made its debut at Seoul 1988, Li was selected for the Chinese senior national team for the first time; a year later she would win team gold and two silver medals at the Asian Championships.
The two-time Chinese mixed doubles national champion then retired from the Chinese team despite being just 25.
That year, the regional Manawatu table tennis association invited her to New Zealand in 1987 to take up a coaching position. She had previously caught the eye when she visited as part of a Chinese junior team on a table tennis tour years prior.
“To be honest I was still pretty young,” she says, adding that she wasn’t ready to put her paddle down just yet. Learn more from the Olympic Channel.
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