Miao Miao is one of Australia’s most successful female table tennis players and has been part of the sport for close to 30 years, as a player and as a coach.

Of Chinese descent, Miao was born in Tianjin, China.

She grew up in Poland and started playing table tennis from eight years old, played for the Polish national team before moving to Australia with her father, a table tennis coach and a former national level player and her mother, a Chinese national level athlete.

Miao made her International table tennis debut in 1995.

TTV spoke to Miao at the Vic Closed Junior Table Tennis Championships.

Miao shared her career highlights as a player and coach.

“As a player it would have to be the Sydney Olympics would be my best achievement, because it was the quarter finals and the best performance I had and also the Commonwealth Games when we are beating other countries players, I feel really good,” Miao said.

“I play four events (including) teams, singles, doubles and mixed-doubles.

“Then for my coaching career was first working with the Australian Junior National team and the Oceania Junior National Team from 2010.

“I have produced a few good players, they are U/13 gold medallists, U/15, U/18 and U/21’s are right now in the Australian National Team.”

As a player, Miao represented Australia at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympic Games.

In addition, Miao represented Australia in the 2006 Commonwealth Games Women’s team.

It was at the 2006 Commonwealth Games where Miao won a silver medal in the singles and bronze medal in the Women’s Doubles.

She is a 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games Women’s Doubles Silver Medallist and Women’s team Bronze Medallist.

“Several times Australian champion, Oceania champion, Commonwealth Games Silver and Bronze medallist,” Miao said.

“And the 2000 Sydney Olympic quarter finals.”

Miao stopped playing table tennis and coaching this year, to become a full-time mother to her two children, a four-year-old and three-month-old.

“I am not working with the Australian National team anymore and maybe in the future still working with the Australian National team or para Australian National team,” she said.

“I coached the Australian National team for the last two years (including) the Australian national team so all the juniors, seniors’ boys and girls and also the Para boys and girls.

“I’ve been coaching the Australian National Women’s team for a while.”

A career ambition for Miao is to be a great professional table tennis coach.

Miao has her own Table Tennis Academy in Glen Waverley called the Miao Miao Table Tennis Academy and it currently has around 50 members.

“I have my own Table Tennis Academy, so I would like to produce lots of younger players for Victoria and also Australia,” Miao said.

It will be hard for the Australian table tennis team next year in Tokyo according to Miao.

“The Olympic Games are always tough and only one team can go from Oceania I think, and we have quite tough qualifications,” she said.

“Between the Australia internal qualifications and also the Oceania qualifications.”

She concedes it will be tough for Australia to get through to the next stage.

“It should be ok to get through to the Olympics, but once we are through to the Olympics there will be tough matches with other countries,” Miao said.

Miao shared her insights on the country she believes will win the table tennis at the Tokyo Olympics.

“I think China and some countries will be very competitive, there are a few good players coming from Japan and also from anywhere around the world,” she said.

“But I believe China has had the best preparation, they already started preparing for the Olympic Games four years ago as that’s what they normally do, and I believe Chinese are quite strong.”

The future of table tennis in Australia is different to other countries, as our players do not play full-time as they have other commitments.

“I think between the Senior and Junior levels there is still a big gap and also between the Australian and International level there’s a gap,” Miao said.

“In Australia, we have professional players just social players and so when they compete against other countries players, they are pretty much full-time professional players so that’s really tough and a big challenge.

“The good side is that our players still study and also in their spare time they are playing table tennis and that commitment to the table tennis competitions and international championships.

“Hopefully, they will have more practice time and more success.”