Paris 2024 Olympics: 11 Year Old Zheng, becomes China's youngest Olympian

China's youngest Olympian is an 11-year-old who was born on the penultimate day of the London 2012 Olympics. In the women's skateboarding park in Paris, Zheng Haohao competed against Sky Brown, a young member of Team GB. Zheng missed out on a spot in the final, which was won by Australia's Arisa Trew, 14, after finishing 18th in the preliminary round with a top score of 63.19. She just started skateboarding when she was seven years old, making her one of the youngest Olympians in history when she departs France. She also has extra cause to celebrate this week because Sunday is her 12-year-old birthday. The children are doing fine. In both of its Olympic skateboarding competitions thus far, the field has been predominantly young. 

Zheng, on the other hand, will be remembered among athletes such as Dimitrios Loundras, who, at the age of ten, won team bronze in gymnastics in 1896 and is still the youngest person to have competed in an Olympic Games. His record might have been surpassed in 1900 by an unidentified young person who coxed a Dutch boat in Paris when he was believed to be seven or eight years old. At the age of 13, Marjorie Gesting of the United States became the youngest female gold medallist in the history of the Summer Olympics when she won the gold in 3m springboard diving in 1936.

Zheng might not have exceeded her, but in four years, a gold in Los Angeles would make a very nice sixteenth birthday gift.