Win the Youth Olympic gold medal on the table! Tainan’s 17-year-old female player Chen Yixin is also a master of cooking and baking

She is good at rackets and spatulas. She loves cooking when she is not practicing football. Cooking dinner during relocation training in Japan. (Provided by Chen Junhao)

[Reporter Hong Ruiqin/Tainan Report] She can win gold medals with a racket on the table, and she can't even hold a spatula in the kitchen! Tainan's 17-year-old table tennis player Chen Yixin won the gold medal in the women's singles final of the Dhaka Youth Olympic Games in 2026. She won Taiwan's first ever Youth Olympic table tennis gold medal, which surprised and delighted her family. Father Chen Junhao revealed that in addition to practicing hard every day, his daughter's biggest private interest is baking and cooking. She often buys muffin mix to make snacks during vacations, and cooks by herself, so that the whole family can enjoy it.

Chen Junhao said that his daughter practices football almost from Monday to Saturday and does not have much rest time. But whenever she is free, she likes to study baking and share the creations with her grandfather, grandmother and aunt's family. She is also good at cooking for the family. She also researches recipes and looks for delicious food online. No matter how tired she is from practicing, she knows how to reward herself with delicious food.

Chen Yixin is most interested in cooking and baking, and her father Chen Junhao shared the delicious dishes his daughter has made. (Provided by Chen Junhao)

In the eyes of his father, Chen Minxin is a very resigned and serious child. Chen Junhao said that his daughter has devoted herself to table tennis training for a long time, almost day and night, and has never heard her cry out in pain. He described her as "being able to squat and defend", gradually gaining strength, and finally standing on the podium of international competitions.

At the critical moment of winning the gold medal, his father Chen Junhao and his aunt Chen Zhilan stayed in front of the TV to watch the whole process. They admitted that the competition was very tense. It was not until Chen Yixin was confirmed to win that she finally breathed a sigh of relief. They were extremely happy that she could achieve such a brilliant result.

Chen Yanxin attended Xinyi Elementary School in Jiali District, Nanshi City, and received excellent backhand training from an early age. When she was in Zhongxiao Junior High School, she won the first place in the 12-year-old group in the 2021 Junior Table Tennis National Player Trials and obtained the national player qualification. In 2022, she represented Taiwan for the first time in the Slovak U13 Table Tennis Challenge and won the championship. Currently studying at Evergreen Middle School, she won the third place in the women's group of the 2025 17-year-old youth ranking competition.

After Tainan Mayor Huang Weizhe learned of the good news, he immediately expressed congratulations, praising the "Tainan Daughter" for bringing glory to Taiwan and becoming famous internationally, and looking forward to Chen Yixin's continued breakthroughs and moving towards winning the 2028 Olympic Games.

Chen Yixin won Taiwan's first ever Youth Olympic table tennis gold medal. (Provided by Chen Junhao)

Chen Minxin's travel photos. (Provided by Chen Junhao)