the CanadaVisa Team - 23 July, 2015
For some of the 332 athletes representing Canada at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, they are representing an adopted country; having arrived here as immigrants and established themselves as world-class Canadian athletes.
One such athlete is Canada’s top-ranked table tennis player, Wilson Zhang Peng, who has returned to China, his country of birth, to represent Canada, his country of choice. He left China in 2003 and settled in Richmond, British Columbia where he took a position as a table tennis coach. He met and married aCanadian and moved to Ottawa to pursue his world-class playing career at the National Training Centre. Zhang became a Canadian citizen in 2007, having been the national table tennis champion for three straight years.
Zhang will lead Canada’s table tennis team, which includes three other Chinese Canadians, to compete in one of China’s most beloved sports.
Canada’s opening ceremonies flag bearer, Adam van Koeverden, is himself the son of immigrants who came to Canada to find a better life.
“I was born in Canada but I consider myself an immigrant and now people associate me with the flag. Ironic isn’t it? There will be 331 other Canadian athletes with stories just like that marching behind me,” said the Olympic gold medal-winning kayaker, before he led Canada’s Olympic team in the march of the athletes.
Though the ceremonies have only just kicked off the two weeks of competition, some sports got an early start this week.
Canada has already had its first victory on Wednesday with a win over Argentina in women’s soccer.
