Zheng Haohao is a Chinese park skateboarder. She is the youngest Olympian to take part at the Paris Olympics 2024. She is the youngest athlete to represent China in the history of the Olympics.

Haohao is 11 years and 11 months old and turns 12 on August 11, just a few days after the skateboarding competition wraps up in the Paris Games.

Zheng Haohao: A Champion In The Making

The child prodigy was born to a family of Korean ethnicity in 2012 in Guangdong Province of China. She began practicing skateboarding at the age of 7. This was after she received a skateboard as a gift for her seventh birthday and immediately developed an interest. She graduated from Jinshan Lake Primary School in Huizhou last month.

Haohao trained at a local skateboarding club in Huizhou with an Asian Games champion. Two years later she was spotted and recruited by the Guangdong provincial team having noted her talent and ability to focus in game.

In 2021, Zheng Haohao became the youngest athlete to compete at China’s National Games where she finished 14th.  In 2022, she won the championship in the women’s skateboarding group B bowl pool finals of the 16th Guangdong Provincial Games.

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In 2023, she started her international venture with a world-series at the age of 10 when she participated in the World Skateboarding Games in Argentina. She secured her Paris Olympic qualification in the Budapest Olympic Qualifier Series where she scored a 540 flip- difficult routine she attempted for the first time in a competition. Thus, she became the youngest athlete to compete in Paris Olympics 2024.

Haohao is close to scripting a history. If she wins in Paris Olympics 2024, she will become the youngest Olympic champion, potentially breaking an 86-year-old record held by Inge Sorensen of Denmark, who won gold in the 200m breaststroke at 12 years and 24 days old in 1938.

China’s sharp-shooting pair of Sheng Lihao and Huang Yuting delivered China the first gold medal of the Paris Olympics 2024. The duo finished first in the 10m air rifle mixed team final.

Sheng Lihao and Huang Yuting have made China proud on several international stages. With calm composure, the young guns overcame pressure situations on various occasions to emerge victorious.

Huang Yuting is one of the minor athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics 2024. Born on 3rd September 2006, Huang Yuting has emerged to become one of the rising shooting stars China has ever produced. She won three medals in air rifle events at the 2022 ISSF World Shooting Championships.

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At the age of 10, Huang’s talent was spotted by the Huangyan District Youth Sports School. After just eight months of training, the young starlet was at par with some of the big national shooters.

Huang marked her international debut in October 2022 and made a strong case for herself as she won three medals in air rifle events at the 2022 ISSF World Shooting Championships held in Cairo. She took home two golds and a silver medal.

There has been no looking back for the 17-year-old since then. She clinched gold in the 10m air rifle mixed team event with Sheng Lihao at the 2023 world championships.

The child prodigy won three gold medals at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games.  She clinched one in women’s 10-meter air rifle individual event and two in team events.

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The teenager won gold in team shooting events at the International Sports Shooting Federation Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2023 and the ISSF World Cup in Bhopal, India. 

The young shooting sensation also won a gold medal in the 10 m air rifle team event at 2023 Changwon Asian Championship.