Japan: Paralympic ping-pong legend still smashing winners at 72-years-old

Subscribe to our channel! 72-year-old table tennis player Kimie Bessho, ​nicknamed ’Madame butterfly,’ was filmed training for another shot at the paralympic games at the All-Star Table Tennis centre in Akashi on Thursday. The 2014 Asian Para Games bronze medalist and four-time Paralympic Games participant will take part in the ITTF’s [International Table Tennis Federation] World Final Qualifying tournament held in Slovenia in June. The tournament will give her another chance to earn a seat at the Tokyo Paralympics 2021. Bessho’s first sporting love was baseball, but she began playing table tennis competitively after bone cancer left her in a wheelchair indefinitely. “It is kind of like I’m disabled in exchange for my life. After all, I had to cut my nerves to get rid of the cancer, so I got rid of all the cancer in the bones. That made me disabled. At the time, I was 43 years old,“ explained Bessho. Bessho qualified for the 2016 Paralympic Games as a 68-year-old and although they say