Chunli Li

Not to be confused with Chun-Li.

Chunli Li MNZM (simplified Chinese: 李春丽; traditional Chinese: 李春麗; pinyin: Lǐ Chūnlì, born 28 February 1962) is a Chinese-born New Zealand female professional table tennis player. She won a gold, silver and two bronze medals at the 2002 Commonwealth Games to cap off her long career.^[1]

Chunli Li

Medal record
Representing  New Zealand
Women's table tennis
World Cup
	1997 Shanghai	Singles
Commonwealth Games
	2002 Manchester	Singles
	2002 Manchester	Doubles
	2002 Manchester	Mixed Doubles
	2002 Manchester	Team

Li was born in Guiping, Guigang, Guangxi in 1962. She became one of the top table tennis players in China, specialising as a doubles player. Li migrated to New Zealand in 1987 and subsequently represented New Zealand until she retired in 2004 to concentrate as the national coach. She competed at four Olympic Games and one Commonwealth Games for New Zealand. Since 2011, she came out of her "retirement" and started representing New Zealand again. Li led the New Zealand team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.^[2][3]

Li (right), after her investiture as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit by the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy, in 2017

In the 2017 New Year Honours, Li was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to table tennis.^[4]

In 2025, at the age of 63, she competed in the Table Tennis World Cup, 28 years after she won bronze in the womens singles event in 1997. In her group, she played Suh Hyo-won and Lily Zhang, losing both matches 4-0