Paris marks the fourth Olympic appearance for Lily Zhang, the top-ranked US table-tennis player at these Games. The 28-year-old's parents are there to cheer her on. But they also wish she'd just quit and get a job. In a colorful profile, the Wall Street Journal charts Zhang's rise: Born to Chinese immigrants, she learned the game as a child on a ping-pong table that served as the family's dining table. She was considered a prodigy at 10 and spent her summers playing with top provincial teams in China. Her parents were encouraging, thinking it would give her resume a boost when it came time to apply for college.
She was cut after her first match at the 2012 London Games at age 16—and says her parents' attitude was that she now had the resume line she needed for college. She pretty much stopped, only to pick the sport back up again after enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley. She made it to the third round in Rio and Tokyo. She won Monday and will next play Wednesday in the round of 16. Her success hasn't changed her parents' minds, and "what's most annoying to Zhang is that she concedes they have a point," per the Journal. It explains that Zhang's sport is one where the prize money and sponsorship potential are modest. A competition she won this year in Manchester, England, for instance, netted her just $650. (Read the full article.)
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