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