"Age is no barrier," said track and field legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee. "It's a limitation you put on your mind." New Zealand's Chunli Li clearly has no such mental manacles. While the 58-year-old has racked up numerous awards with her trusty pips-out penhold racket, she is in no way succumbing to the narrative that she should just bow out to make room for younger players. After 33 years in her adoptive homeland, she is still hoping for a domestic challenger, much the way the Maytag repairman waits for a service call. Li's journey began in Guiping, China, where she was born in 1962. Her talent for table tennis earned her a spot on the national team and the opportunity to travel. At 20, her team played a friendly away game in New Zealand. There, Li found the relaxed atmosphere was like a breath of fresh air after growing up in the unrelenting pressure of playing the national sport of China for China. Like so many before and after her, Li was retired from the Chinese national team at the ripe old age of 25. While she may have been considered over the hill in her homeland, she was still one of the best players in the world. Remembering the laid-back vibes of New Zealand, she returned to the South Pacific and put down roots in 1987. Upon her arrival, Li looked for competition but found it to be an unobtainable commodity on the island nation. After winning nine consecutive national championships, she refocused her efforts on elevating New Zealand's international profile. Staying sharp by playing in Japanese leagues, Li went on to represent her adoptive homeland in four Olympics. At the age of 40, Li won four medals at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, including gold in singles. At 50, Li qualified for her fifth Olympics, but the New Zealand Olympic Committee denied her bid on a technicality. She now runs a club and makes a living coaching, but she has never given up on her Olympic dreams. She now says that Tokyo 2020 is her goal. While it may sound far-fetched for someone born during the Great Leap Forward, she points out that she has heard that kind of ageist chatter before. "Every time someone told me I was too old, maybe because I didn't know if I was really too old for it and because I love to play, I decided to give it a go and I succeeded each time," states Li. "So this time, I'm thinking again – now that I'm almost 60, do I want to try again? I really want to challenge myself. Only after I try will I know if I'm really too old for this. I won't know if I don't try." Her quixotic quest in some way parallels that of Danny Seemiller, the legendary US champion who, at 65, made a valiant but ultimately futile Olympic bid at this February's US Olympic trials in Santa Monica. Only time will tell if Li's quest has more in common with that of her fellow Chinese expatriate Ni Xialain, now of Luxembourg. Ni qualified to represent Luxembourg at Tokyo 2020. When she competes next summer, she will be the oldest table tennis Olympian ever at 58. Or will she? Chunli Li is one year older. "I don't have a limit and I don't think this way," said Li. "I think I would like to just keep going until one day maybe I can't move! I will go 100 per cent and find out later where the limit is." Clearly, Chunli Li will not let age or any other artificial barriers get in the way of her dreams. To the contrary, she is miraculously unencumbered by self-imposed mental limits.

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