"Everyone has to bring that up," Ping said. "I like it – I hear it all the time, but it still kind of amuses me."

At age eight, Ping’s table tennis career took off when she and her older sister, Emily, tagged along with their father to a local table tennis club. What started out as simple fun soon progressed into both girls competing for the United States. When Ping was 12, she made the U.S. Junior National Team.

"I worked my way up," said Ping, a native of Beaverton, Ore. "I traveled a lot internationally to train, so I spent some time living in Europe and eventually got to the level for the Olympics."

While her sister set down her paddle in college, Ping kept at it because of her love for the sport. One of the things Ping enjoys most about table tennis – besides traveling to 20 different countries and meeting people from all around the globe – is the complexity of the game.

"Even the best players in the world always have something to work on," Ping said. "That’s probably true in all sports, but in table tennis there is so much to the game that you always have a weakness that you can improve, and I really respect that."

After not finishing as well as she wanted to at the 2004 World Junior Championships in Kobe, Japan, Ping is off to her next competition – the 2004 USA Table Tennis National Championships in Las Vegas, Nev., Dec. 15-18. Ping is going into the competition with mediocre expectations since she hasn’t had as much time to train as she would have liked.

"After the Olympics I was back in school," Ping said, "and I’ve been really busy with my classes and turning in my college applications. But I don’t feel my game has declined because I’ve been keeping up physically and I’m a little bit more relaxed – so we’ll see what happens."

From the moment she made the 2004 Olympic Team until the conclusion of the 2004 Athens Games, Ping experienced a whirlwind schedule of interviews and training, in addition to a lucrative sponsorship.

"I felt it was nonstop and everything was going so fast," she said. "We are probably the first table tennis players that ever signed with Nike, so that was really exciting. To be able to see the business side of sports was interesting for me – that’s something I’m considering going in to."

At the 2004 Games, Ping and her doubles partner, four-time Olympian Jasna Reed (Chicago, Ill.), 33, went in with high hopes, but in the second round the duo lost to a team from Singapore. Although disappointed, Ping felt blessed for her chance to represent her country at such a young age.

"It was indescribable," said Ping, the youngest member of the 2004 Olympic Table Tennis Team. "The Olympics is the greatest thing I have ever achieved. And it had been my goal since I started playing. To finally make the Olympic Team at my age was so cool."

Since July 2003, Ping has been competing with Reed, who plays professionally. Not only are they great teammates, but they are good friends as well.

"As a team, our styles really complement each other," Ping said. "We’re both able to play an all-around type game, which means we can do a little bit of everything. It doesn’t matter if we’re up against an attacking team or a defending team, we can still cope with anything."

2003 was a hectic year for Ping as she missed her chance to compete at the 2003 National Team Trials in Atlanta, Ga. While en route to the competition, a passenger on Ping’s flight suffered a stroke and the plane had to return to Portland, Ore. The aircraft took off once again but Ping was unable to catch her connecting flight in Denver, Colo., due to seven feet of snow. After spending three nights at the airport, Ping arrived late to the Trials.

"It was pretty horrible," she said. "That was a bad time for me since I had spent so much time and energy and money into my training. But it was all worth it after making the Olympic Team. It made up for it 100 times."

Unsure of her next step, Ping will be finishing her senior year at Westview High School at the end of January. Following her graduation, she is looking to train overseas in Asia and Europe, and also wants to attend Berkeley, USC, UCLA or Stanford to continue playing table tennis and pursue her interest in business.

"I’m looking somewhere in the California area because they have good clubs where I can train and go to school at the same time," Ping said.

As for the next Olympic Games – it may seem distant now, but Ping isn’t giving up her paddle yet.

"They sound far off," Ping said. "Four years from now – but the time just goes so fast. You really have to try and keep up, so I’m planning for the next four years."