Profile | Tokyo Olympics: Zheng Ninali makes history as China’s first naturalised Olympian
- The 22-year-old makes history with PB in heptathlon 100m hurdles, three years after Commonwealth Games silver for Canada
- Athlete, also known as Nina Schultz, fulfils her high jump world record-holding grandmother’s Olympic dream in Tokyo
Heptathlete Zheng Ninali has made history at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium where she became China’s first naturalised Olympian and fulfilled her grandmother’s Olympic dream.
The 22-year-old was previously known as Nina Schultz and competed for Canada, including winning a silver at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018 where she finished second to Britain’s Olympic champion Katerina Johnson-Thompson.
Born in New Westminster, British Columbia, she was eligible to naturalise for China through her mother Debra Duan, whose parents were acclaimed Chinese athletes.
Zheng decided to compete for China and naturalised to become a Chinese citizen, having to wait to be eligible to compete.
She was ruled eligible to compete in national representative competitions for China from April according to World Athletics, marking the end of the cooling-off period since she last competed for Canada.