The Olympian Who Is 61 Years Old—and Destroying Athletes Half Her Age

She made her international debut in the 1970s. She retired and unretired—twice. Now she’s a table-tennis star in Paris.

July 29, 2024, The Wall Street Journal

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Paris

As she unzipped her jacket, adjusted her knee strap and began stretching for her first table-tennis match of this Olympics, an odd sensation came over the most unlikely player on the floor.

Suddenly, Ni Xia Lian felt nervous.

It was strange because Ni, a former world champion, had seen this all before: the bright lights of international competition, the Olympic rings painted on the net, the raucous crowd ready to erupt for her. But this time, she felt the full weight of a nation on her shoulders. She knew that she would need to summon all of her experience to settle into the match.

As it turns out, she had more of that than anyone in the building. That’s because Ni, the grand duchess of Luxembourg table tennis, is 61 years old.

There are other sexagenarians at the Paris Games, but the only athletes older than Ni compete in equestrian, which means she’s the oldest Olympian here who doesn’t ride a horse. When she made her international debut in 1979, almost nobody in this year’s Olympic field was born. Ni won her first world championship in 1983, and her first-round opponent here was born in 1993—which makes her younger than Ni’s son.

“I’m a table-tennis grandma,” says Ni, who is also a six-time Olympian. “I’m not a grandma—yet. I’m waiting.”

She retired and unretired before Michael Jordan. Then she did it again. In fact, she was in her prime before table tennis was even an Olympic sport.

These days, Olympians half her age say they can’t quite believe that Ni is still here.

“It’s absolutely mind-boggling,” says American table-tennis star Lily Zhang.

But to Ni, it makes perfect sense.

“I have double the age,” she says, “and double the experience.”

Born on the Fourth of July in 1963, Ni began playing table tennis in China when she was 7 years old—before the days of ping-pong diplomacy. She was tapped for the Chinese national team as a teenager. If table tennis had been an Olympic sport in 1984, Ni almost certainly would have medaled. Instead, by the time table tennis made its debut in 1988, she was well into her first retirement.

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