Twenty-eight years after Tang Yongshu competed at the Olympics – and won bronze in women’s doubles – it will be her daughter’s turn to experience the world’s biggest sporting stage.

Tang had a stellar record with China – apart from her Olympic bronze, she was a World Championships runner-up and won Sudirman Cup and Uber Cup titles, among many honours – before she moved to Australia, where she competed as He Tian Tang. She will be in the gallery at Paris 2024 to watch her daughter Angela Yu follow in her footsteps as an Olympic athlete.

“I’ve been with badminton ever since I was in my mum’s womb – she’d been playing badminton for a long time,” says Angela. “Being in badminton for such a long time means a lot to me because of everyone – the environment, the people in badminton – it’s a very safe community and environment to be in, and also very uplifting to be around all the other athletes.”

Badminton is in the family too – her father Yu Qi was a former China national player, while her brother Jack Yu has been competing for Australia for the last five years       .

“At the start – I’m not going to lie – it was tough because of all the running and all the physical I had to do,” says Angela. “But now that I’m older, my mum’s let me go a little bit and let me enjoy the sport a lot more. So now I really like playing badminton and I like the people I get to play with.

“Almost every lecture had badminton in it. But because my dad used to coach the national team in Australia, he wasn’t home that often. My mum is the one that really looked after us and taught us stuff, like lectured us and scolded us a bit more than my dad (laughs), but it makes sense now, like when you grow up you understand that she was just trying to help us become better people, better athletes.”

There’s a sense of admiration that comes through when she talks about the rigors that her mum went through. Motivation isn’t far to seek.

“I didn’t know Chinese players worked so hard back in the day. They were very strict, they did a lot of physical. My mum has a scar on her eye, it was from her climbing stairs – they had to run up a mountain and she was so exhausted that she fell but she kept going until she finished and then she went to hospital. So it’s crazy.

“Every time I train, I feel I’m not training hard enough, so I try to do a few more private sessions after the group sessions.”

What was it like when she made the cut for Paris 2024?

“My dad and my mum were really really happy for me. They’re really proud of me. In my family we don’t really express a lot, so just hearing my dad say: ‘wow, good job’ – something like that – was very nice.”