Winning Historic Olympics Bronze with Focal Dystonia

in 2019

i was dominated by this german player

han ying in three straight games

so i lost 11 6 11 3 and 11 won

i didn’t stand a chance

and in 2020 i lost again to this other

german player 1-4 and it wasn’t even a

close game

however in the tokyo olympics

i managed to beat both of them and hong

kong secured the first ever team medal

in history

so how did i do that

today i would like to share to all of

you how i fought my way to the olympics

and also to accomplish one of the

greatest wins in my career

when i was three years old i used to go

to my dad’s training center with my

sister

and as i wasn’t tall enough she would be

practicing and i’d be by her side

picking up balls

but i was captivated by the sound of the

ping pong balls hitting the table so it

was like pick pock pick pock

and once i was tall enough i tried table

tennis and immediately fell in love with

it

i remembered when i was four years old

my dad asked me

what do you want to be when you grow up

and i told him that

i want to be a table tennis world

champion

so i started to invest my time and

effort and table tennis and eventually

become one of the best young players in

hong kong

so people thought that i was naturally

gifted but what they didn’t know were

the sacrifices i made for table tennis

at the age of nine i already practiced

seven days a week and two hours

immediately after school and i have to

finish my homework till midnight

at the age of 11

i spent my summer holidays alone in

china training

while all my friends were having a great

time on summer vacations with their

family

so they brought me souvenirs from all

over the world they brought me small

eiffel towers from paris and they got me

keychains from singapore

and all i had for them were ping pong

balls

and at the age of 15 i made the most

important decision in my life

and that is to give up my school life

and pursue table tennis as a profession

to be honest

i struggled a lot at that time because

as much as i love table tennis i share

the same intense passion for academics

i love to read and i read a wide variety

of books

i remember really liking this percy

jackson series by rick riordan and

i was so empowered by those characters

that i myself was inspired to become a

writer

i also read a lot of science books to

learn about solar systems about the

fundamentals of the universe

and i also dreamed of becoming a

research scientist

however if i made this decision of going

professional in my sport

all my other dreams would die

there are actually a lot of risks

becoming an athlete we have to compete

against the world and it is very

possible that we don’t make it to the

top

we might have injuries that can shorten

our career

and more importantly

if i gave up my studies at the age of 15

what can i do when i retire at the age

of 30.

however

quoting a line from lady gaga’s a

million reasons

i’ve got a hundred million reasons to

walk away but baby i just need one good

one to stay

and that good reason was

i really wanted to try

not everyone has this opportunity to

become a professional in sports and i

have this passion i have this talent and

i was very sure that i would regret in

the future if i just gave up this chance

just because i lacked the courage

there is a lifespan for an athlete but

learning is lifelong

so i decided to go for it give it a shot

so that i wouldn’t regret in the future

and that is how i started this journey

of chasing the dream of the

four-year-old who wanted to be a world

champion

however at the age of 22

i encountered a life-changing event

so one day as i was practicing

my arm suddenly feel uncontrollable and

rigid

at first i thought it was fatigue but

the problem worsened so i had to see a

neurologist

i was diagnosed with focal dystonia

so focal dystonia is a rare neurological

disorder that involves involuntary

spasms and small muscles

probably resulting from overuse and

repetitive stress

so

when i get ready to hit the ball

my arm is supposed to open up like this

but instead my arm would extend

involuntarily and my wrist would bend at

a weird angle

so instead of having a fluid movement

forward my arm would go sideways and i

wouldn’t be able to exert a force on the

ball with my wrist

this greatly affected my accuracy and

position

and also i always hit the table with my

hand because i couldn’t control the

sudden extension of my arm

my training hour my my training hours

has to be cut down from eight hours to

two hours

and i was really scared at that time

because i still had six months till the

olympics and i couldn’t even practice

normal i couldn’t practice the drills

that i used to do that i knew that can

help me improve

and

i just

i was

really scared about it because i

wouldn’t know if i can make it to the

olympics

so

i

so um

at that time i remember at one one time

in my training i cried because

i was really frustrated at myself for

being unable to control my own body

i stopped training and went to see a

sports therapist

the sports therapist gave me an advice

at that time

which i thought was

rubbish

i thought this was terrible

he said

you have to treat dystonia as your

friend you have to embrace it

and i was like

how can i embrace dystonia as my friend

this thing is destroying me it’s ruining

my career

the next day i was asked to play a

friendly match with a player from a

chinese team

on that particular day my dystonic

conditions were really bad and i

couldn’t even hold my hand still before

i serve

so from this video you can see that my

arm keeps flexing before i serve

and this was totally uncontrollable

okay

so

um

but my opponent made a lot of random

errors so

i won in the end but i thought it was

pure luck

until

from what my friend has told me

um what she heard

uh

about what the opponent had said behind

my back she said

many serve is so unpredictable i never

knew when and where she’s gonna serve

and

i

and i couldn’t read the spin she puts on

the ball

i was actually really surprised at that

moment because i thought that people

would only laugh at my strange movements

and i never thought that my dystonic

condition can actually make my balls

unpredictable

so from that incident onwards i start to

accept dystonia as a part of myself

that maybe i just don’t have to do the

same thing as everyone else does i don’t

have to

practice the same drills you don’t have

to practice the same long hours and i do

not have to have the same movements

but instead

my unorthodox movement movements has

given me an advantage

now that i couldn’t practice as much as

i would like to i would spend more time

thinking about my game

and i have analyzed for over 40 players

and almost 100 matches

before the olympics on videotapes which

has given me a lot of inspirations on my

tactical game

so i was

these good things has happened to me

because of focal dystonia

and i realized that

when i started to accept focal dystonia

as a part of me and embrace it as my

friend

i was actually at

i wasn’t forced to an end of my career

but only at a new starting point of my

life

one of the greatest things

that i have learned from the olympics

and also from dystonia

is to be in the moment

even though that i started to

accept estonia as a part of myself that

good things can also happen

it was still entirely a different thing

to play in such a high-level tournament

like the olympics

so one thing about dystonia is that it

aggravates when i i experience anxiety

so when the problem surfaces

i would feel nervous about it and when i

get nervous about it the problem worsens

and it goes on like this terrible cycle

and in order to break the cycle i’d have

to pull myself out of my worries and to

be in the moment

to be honest i didn’t play well in the

first few matches of the olympics

in my first match against the spanish

player i was so nervous that even if i

get a millisecond to think before i hit

the ball

i would hesitate and didn’t have the

confidence to make the point

i kept thinking about my past mistakes

and i just didn’t have the confidence to

win

and i believe that this was the major

reason that i lost

after this match i was even more anxious

because i felt that i didn’t perform

well

so

i

just before the team event my

focal dystonia this condition has gone

so bad that i couldn’t even make a

proper serve

i couldn’t even hold a teacup in my hand

without these uncontrollable movements

so one day i refused to train because

i just thought that i didn’t i don’t

want my teammates to see my disability

and therefore discourage them

every day i cried silently on my bus

trip to the hall because i was very

disappointed in myself and also fearful

about my bad performance in the upcoming

matches

i mean i still

fought my best but i just didn’t have

the confidence

i lost in the doubles match against

romania and against japan and there was

totally no reason for me to believe that

i stand a chance against the german

players

but just the day before the bronze medal

match i suddenly realized that this

would be the last match in my olympics

whether we win or lose

everything will come to an end

if i keep worrying about my dystonic

conditions i was so sure that i would

regret in the future because

this would become a barrier that i have

never learned to overcome

i started to think that even if i lose

maybe i should try to enjoy the game try

to enjoy my moment in the olympics

i suddenly remembered what my sports

therapist had told me to to embrace

dystonia as my friend

and instead of worrying about my

uncontrollable movements maybe i should

try to pay more attention to my

surroundings to my opponent

who might also be experiencing the same

frustrations and anxieties as i do

and by focusing on my opponent i can

finally pull myself out of my worries

and to appreciate the game

so in the first game against hanging i

was 1 6 behind and i made lots of

mistakes

but instead of criticizing criticizing

myself as i always would

i just gave myself a self-affirming knot

and a small fist poem and then i moved

on

point by point my accuracy got better

and my confidence grew i didn’t think

about my past mistakes but instead

focused on how to win that specific

point

in that game there were no fears there

were no doubts there were no futures

there were no pass

and that was a wonderful feeling of

being in the moment

so we lost in the first doubles match

and uh we lost in yeah we lost in the

first doubles match and we won two

singles match so we only needed one more

win to get the bronze

and it was again my turn to play in the

fourth match

that was a lot of pressure for me right

if i win our team would be olympic

medalist

but

did i feel the pressure

no i didn’t

in fact i was so in control that i it

even amused me when i see my opponent

getting frustrated at her own mistakes

my friend told me that they saw me grin

during my game and asked if i was

celebrating a little bit too early

but the truth is

i was in the state of euphoria and i

felt so at peace

that was probably the first time in my

career that i didn’t think about the

results but instead enjoyed the game

and with this mentality we won and hong

kong made history

thank you

and at the age of 23 i stood on the

olympic podium as my teammate hung the

metal on my neck

all of a sudden these memories came

rushing back into my mind

the memory of the four-year-old who said

she wanted to be a world champion

and also the memory of this 22 year old

who thought that her career was forced

to end because of focal dystonia

and yet i am here today sharing the

story of this hard-earned bronze medal

to all of you

some people say that

dreams are just dreams they don’t come

true

and i didn’t become world champion

but i am very confident to tell all of

you that if you work hard enough and you

have passion for what you do you have

this persistence

even though that you don’t achieve your

dream you will surely accomplish

something unexpected

thank you

you