Science of Success: Table-Tennis Star Ni Xia Lian’s Olympic Longevity

Bold Names

The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most athletes’ competitive years are in their 20s and 30s, but 61-year-old Ni Xia Lian has been playing professional table tennis for nearly 50 years. The Chinese-born Luxembourgish table-tennis player was one of the oldest athletes at this summer’s Paris Olympics. On the Science of Success, WSJ’s Ben Cohen speaks with Ni and Tommy Danielsson, her coach and husband, about how she’s maintained her longevity in competitive sports. What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: [email protected] Sign up for the WSJ's free The Future of Everything newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Robert Halfe research indicates 9 out of 10 hiring managers are having difficulty hiring.
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0:21.7	Perhaps you're a casual runner or a pickleball star or maybe you just love your time in the gym.
0:30.0	How old were you when you were at your athletic peak? The age of peak
0:37.4	athletic performance for most sports is between 20 and 30 years old. The average
0:41.8	age of Olympic athletes is around 27. That's on the young
0:45.3	side, but maybe your best is yet to come. Just ask Nies Sha Lin. The Chinese-born
0:51.2	Lux and Borgish table tennis player just competed at the Olympics at the age of 61.
0:57.0	From the Wall Street Journal, this is the science of success, a look at how today's successes could lead to tomorrow's innovations.
1:08.0	I'm Ben Cohen. I write a column for the journal about how people, ideas, and teams work and when they thrive.
1:16.1	Today, we're looking at longevity in sports and speaking to one of the oldest active Olympians,
1:22.4	Nyshalin.
1:24.0	This summer, there were other sexagenarians at the Paris Games.
1:40.0	But the only athletes older than knee competed in Equestrian, which means she was the oldest Olympian there
1:42.0	who wasn't riding a horse.
1:46.2	When she made her international debut in 1979, almost nobody in this summer's Olympic field was born.
1:53.0	Knee won her first world championship in 1983.
1:57.0	Her first round opponent in Paris was born in 1993,
2:01.0	which makes her younger than Knee's children.
	...

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