A 92-year-old father stayed awake until 5 a.m. in China to watch his 58-year-old daughter qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics — a dream he had seen since his daughter was a little girl when he took her for table tennis training.

Zhiying Zeng started her table tennis journey in China but ended up fulfilling her desire to play at the Olympics by representing Chile at the 2024 Games.

Zeng was born in 1966 in Guangzhou, China, into a household that lived and breathed table tennis. Her mother was a table tennis coach and coached Zeng until she was 9 years old. She quickly climbed the ranks and won numerous regional tournaments, subsequently becoming a junior national champion.

At the age of 16, Zeng was a part of the Chinese national team. However, her dream of playing on the Olympic stage couldn’t be fulfilled after she announced early retirement from the sport due to a rule change that exposed her weaknesses.

The “two-colour rule” imposed before the 1988 Seoul Olympics meant that the two sides of the paddle could not be black anymore; they had to be different colours. This significantly challenged Zeng, who would often rotate the paddle to confuse her opponents. Different colours meant that she would not be that unpredictable anymore.

“So many players in China have the dream [to represent the country] because it’s so hard to achieve. The change of rules affected my game a lot,” she told CNN. “That’s when I had a big downturn and left the national team. ”

But the tide changed quickly for Zeng. In 1989, a school in Chile invited her to become a table tennis coach, an offer that changed her life.

Zeng started playing again a few years later and won two national-level tournaments in 2004 and 2005. However, she put a halt to her journey again after her son started playing the sport.

15 years later, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, Zeng gave table tennis another shot only to exercise and keep herself healthy but soon fell in love with the sport all over again.

“[started playing again] More than anything, just to exercise because we weren’t doing anything locked down in the house except eating,” she told CNN. “I got the bug and once we were able to leave, I immediately wanted to play against someone to see what level I was at – and see if I could I still run or not.”

She began playing in regional tournaments with the help of the federation in Iquique, Chile, where she resides. She then qualified for the 2023 South American Table Tennis Championships at the age of 57 after persuasion from her friends and family. And at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, she became a Chilean sensation and got the opportunity to represent her country at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

“My dad was able to see his daughter qualify for the Olympics,” she told CNN. “He used to take me to training and to matches when I was a girl and now at 57, I made it. I made it.”

On Saturday, Zeng played against Lebanon’s Mariana Sahakian in the preliminary rounds of Paris 2024 and unfortunately lost. However, her story has been one for the ages.

“But I don't feel very sad, because this is sport. My husband, my sons, everyone I love and care about were there shouting my name. I feel so content," Zeng said after her loss.

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