Table tennis was just part of family life for Rachel Sung, who made her Olympic debut yesterday in the team competition in Paris—and became part of a viral storyline with US basketball greats.
Her parents met playing for their colleges in Taiwan, and she grew up practicing with her sisters.
“I feel like I really lucked out in that aspect, where there was always someone with me at tournaments,” Sung said in a video posted to the USA Table Tennis Instagram account this week. “It was always nice.”
Previously, Sung competed in the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago and the 2021 World Junior Championships. But, she explained, there’s nothing quite like making the Olympic team.
“It didn’t feel real,” she said in the clip. “I was kind of overwhelmed once it hit me. Tears came, and I saw my parents in the audience.”
That only made her get more emotional, she reflected.
“I think it’s just the fact that I know how hard it was for them to financially put us through all those years of training, especially since it wasn’t just me,” she said. “There was two other sisters.”
She was thinking about how much her immigrant parents had sacrificed to give them the chance to succeed.
“To actually put us through the sport and drive us back and forth every day for practice—like, I know how hard it was,” she said. “In that moment, it just really felt like it paid off for them, too. And I was happy to show them something that came out of their work.”
Sung also encouraged other young athletes hoping to one day realize their own Olympic dreams to persevere through difficulties.
“There’s always going to be so many moments where you feel like you can’t continue, or, like you just can’t see yourself pushing through this barrier that’s in front of you,” she told the interviewer. “But I feel like it always ends up working out. Or, even if you don’t get the result you want, you always learn something new.”
Sung and her teammates Lily Zhang and Amy Wang ended up falling 3-2 to Germany on Tuesday.
Yet, they ended up making quite the impression on some of the biggest superstars in the world—namely the US basketball team.
As the table tennis team sailed down the River Seine during the Opening Ceremonies, they posed for pictures with LeBron James, Steph Curry and Anthony “Ant” Edwards.
A video of an interaction where they challenge Edwards to a table tennis battle has garnered nearly half a million likes on TikTok. But it didn’t stop there.
The “Antman” ended up cheering on Zhang as she defeated Brazilian Bruno Takahashi.
And the table tennis crew sat courtside during the basketball team’s practice Aug. 2.
They asked Curry for his autograph. Then, he asked for theirs.
“Appreciate yall coming thru!!” he posted on Instagram.
USA Table Tennis commended them for the big splash they made in Paris.
“Thank you to our Women’s team—Lily Zhang, Amy Wang, and Rachel Sung—for your unwavering commitment and effort,” a USATT spokesperson said yesterday on Instagram. “Everything you’ve achieved for Team USA is truly impressive.”
