At 73, when most careers are long behind them, Wang Qi proved that age is just a number.<\/p>\n
Decked in Fiji blue, the former coach from the People’s Republic of China, made his debut at the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships<\/a>, stealing the spotlight at the 2026 edition, not just for his skills but also his spirit.<\/p>\n \u201cI am very, very happy to be here. I value the chance,” Wang told Olympics.com at the tournament in London, England.<\/p>\n \u201cI was born in China\u2026 So many [table tennis] players there, but no chance [for most],” he said, highlighting the nation’s dominance of table tennis<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I am lucky.”<\/p>\n Wang\u2019s table tennis journey began in his home country at the age of seven, when a visit to his elder sister\u2019s university sparked his curiosity and saw him pick up a paddle for the first time.<\/p>\n Two years later, he enrolled in junior training. But just as he began to dream of soaring in the sport, his wings were clipped as the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) forced him to put his promising career on hold.<\/p>\n After a long-awaited return, Wang stepped away from playing and turned to coaching, playing a role in the early development of Ma Lin<\/a>, who went on to win two gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2001, life took an unexpected turn for Wang, as his family migrated to Fiji, opening doors he had never imagined.<\/p>\n \u201cI beat everyone I played there; in Fiji, [the competition] was very easy,” Wang recalled. \u201cSo, Fiji asked me to coach the team from 2002. I was still playing while coaching them.<\/p>\n “Before the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the Fiji government granted me special citizenship [and from there on] I played many tournaments for Fiji.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 73, when most careers are long behind them, Wang Qi proved that age is just a number.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-420524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}