Olympics-Skateboarding-China's Zheng, youngest Olympian in Paris, just wants to have fun

Olympic Qualifier Series 2024 Shanghai - Urban Park, Shanghai, China - May 16, 2024 China's Zheng Haohao in action during the Women's Skateboarding Park Preliminary. /Tyrone Siu/File Photo

PARIS - Chinese park skateboarder Zheng Haohao dreamed of going to the Olympics when she was little.

It didn't take too long for her dream to come true. At 11 years and 11 months, she is the youngest Olympian in Paris and China's youngest athlete ever to compete in any Olympic Games - only four years after she first took up the sport.

From the hilly Huizhou city in Southern China's Guangdong Province a couple of hours' bus ride from Hong Kong, Zheng got a skateboard for her seventh birthday and immediately developed a huge interest in the sport.

She trained at a local club with an Asian Games champion before the Guangdong provincial team recruited her two years later, having noted her perseverance and ability to focus in competition.

In 2021, Zheng became the youngest athlete to compete at China's National Games where she took the 14th place.

In 2023, she started competing globally in world series and eventually qualified for Paris in Budapest after scoring a successful 540 flip - a difficult routine she tried for the first time in a competition.

"I feel I'm really kicking ass when I skateboard. I feel a bit narcissistic," Zheng said with a grin in an interview with CCTV.

The skinny girl with a pony tail, who just graduated from primary school a couple of weeks ago, will join a number of teenagers in the women's park event that takes place on Aug. 6, in one of the youngest sports Paris has to offer.

She's also among a new generation of Chinese athletes that has defied the stereotype of the country's hardworking, well-disciplined sports people who ordinarily have to spend years to rise up the ranks in the rigorous state-funded training system.

Skateboarding was first included in the Olympics in the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games and boosted viewership as brands scrambled to capture a share of the sport's youthful fan base.

In China, authorities added the increasingly popular sport to the country's national physical education curriculum for primary schools and middle schools in 2022, aiming to cultivate creativity and mental strength in its often homework-laden kids.

Zheng, who loves shopping and catching fish at temple fairs, is aiming to achieve a place in the top 16 in Paris but said that winning wouldn't matter as much as having a good time.

"Competition to me is just to get together with my good friends," Zheng said. "I know over 10 of the world's top 20 skateboarders.

"It's like we are playing a fun game - everyone has to show the best they've got."

- (Reuters)