With the upcoming Olympics in Beijing, table tennis will draw larger crowds than usual. This is an exciting opportunity for all players, but especially for Wang Chen.

Chen was born in China and groomed to be a top-notch table tennis player.

However, despite her Junior Championship at 14 and her two medals at the World Championships in 1995 and 1997, she was still passed up by the 2000 Chinese Olympic team because she was ranked 4th in the world and the team took the top three.

Deciding that enough was enough, she put down her paddle and moved to the United States to help her sister run a couple stores in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In New York City, she met somebody who gave her a boost to get back to the paddle. No stranger to adversity, holocaust survivor and table tennis club owner Jerry Wartski found Wang Chen and got her back into the game.

He offered her the opportunity to coach and manage the club, and the confidence boost gave her some much needed motivation to get back to training.

Now with her U.S. citizenship and the support of Wartski and the dozens of members of the table tennis club in Manhattan that she used to manage, Chen will play for the U.S. in the 2008 Olympics.

She hopes to become the first U.S. Player to make it past the round of 32 in the Olympics, and possibly make a run for a medal.

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