Newly-naturalized Chinese athlete Zheng Ninali dominated the women's heptathlon event at the athletics test competition for China's 14th National Games.
The 22-year-old won all seven disciplines, but she wasn't satisfied with her result of 6,153 points, which is lower than the 6,240-point entry standard for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.
Zheng Ninali
Canadian-born Zheng, whose birth name is Nina Schultz, is eager to make up for her grandmother Zheng Fengrong's regrets on missing the 1956 Olympic Games.
Zheng Fengrong, 84, is a Chinese athletics legend. The high jumper joined the Chinese national athletics team in 1953, and was confident of reaching the Olympic podium in 1956, only for China to boycot that year's Games in Melbourne.
Despite missing the Olympics, Zhang broke the women's high jump world record in 1957, with what was also the first athletics world record for the People's Republic of China.
In 2008, Zheng Fengrong a torch bearer at the Beijing Olympic Games. However, the former Chinese national champion still regrets that she didn't have the chance to compete at an Olympic Games as an athlete.
After Zheng Ninali's mother divorced in 2000, Zheng Fengrong and her husband Duan Qiyan began to help take care of Zheng Ninali and her elder brother Zheng Enlai.
"When Tiger (Enlai) went rollerskating when he was six, Nina (Ninali) kept running after him. Little Nina was a courageous girl. She even jumped off from a one-meter high platform when she was a kid," said Zheng Fengrong.
"Both Nina and Tiger inherited our family's sporting talent."
Zheng Ninali began to receive athletics training as a child in Canada. Her grandfather was her coach. In 2017, Zheng Ninali took part in China's 13th National Games in Tianjin as an overseas Chinese.
In 2018, the rising star pocketed a silver in the Commonwealth Games heptathlon for Canada.
"When Nina was about 20, she told us she wanted to represent China at the Tokyo Olympics. I hugged her and burst into tears," Zheng Fengrong told Xinhua.
The young athlete decided to take a Chinese name. She took Zheng as her given name, after her grandmother, and added Li, her mother's family name, to her first name.
To chase her family's Olympic dream, Zheng Ninali trained by herself in the United States as a college student amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She not only performed well academically, but also improved a lot across the seven disciplines.
Zheng Fengrong said her granddaughter was confident and self-disciplined. To prepare for the Olympic Games and China's upcoming 14th National Games, Zheng Ninali dropped out of school and left for China in January 2021.
"She has improved a lot in the javelin and shot put since her return. We are expecting her to bring us more surprises," Zheng Fengrong said.
According to the release of World Athletics, Zheng Ninali has been eligible to compete for China since April 12, 2021. In 2017, Zheng Enlai was naturalized and became a member of the Chinese national ice hockey team.
"We do believe that there is always a special link between the Olympics and our family," Zheng Fengrong said.