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China Announces its Table Tennis Team

Thursday, 19th June 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

China officially announced its Olympic table tennis (ping pong) team yesterday. No surprises here—the three men and three women who will represent China at the Olympics in Beijing are the same six who have been cleaning up at competitions around the world this spring.

Olympic table tennis is a 32-team, single-elimination format (with 48 teams competing in a qualifying round for the bottom 16 spots). Matches are best-of-five games. There are four events in the 2008 games—men's and women's singles and team championships.

The Chinese team will be led by Liu Guoliang. At 32 years of age, he's not much older than the players he coaches, but he has won four Olympic medals, including two golds. Liu will lead a table tennis dream team. Each player has at least one Olympic medal—together, they have won nine.

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Wang Hao (王皓), silver medalist in singles at the Athens Olympics in 2004, goes into the Olympics as the number one player in International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings. He is 24 years old and comes from Jilin province.

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Ma Lin (马林), the world's number two player, won doubles gold in Athens along with Chen Qi (陈奇), who is currently ranked sixth in the world and is an alternate on China's 2008 Olympic team. The 28-year-old Ma comes from Liaoning.

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At 1.86 meters (6'1"), Wang Liqin (王励勤) is lanky for a table tennis player. His long reach has helped him to a number-four world rank. He won a gold medal in doubles in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and won singles bronze at the Athens games in 2004. He comes from Jiangsu and celebrated his 30th birthday yesterday (June 18).

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Zhang Yining (张怡宁) is the top female player in the world and won two gold medals in 2004 at the Athens Olympics. She won the singles competition and took doubles gold with teammate Wang Nan. Zhang is a 27-year-old from Beijing.

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Guo Yue (郭跃) is the youngest member of China's Olympic table tennis team. Despite the fact that she hasn't yet celebrated her 20th birthday, Guo already has an Olympic medal—she won the bronze in women's doubles in Athens. A left-handed player, she comes from Liaoning province.

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Wang Nan (王楠) is the number four player in the world, but still a serious contender for Olympic gold. She has the most gold medals of any active player, male or female. She won singles and doubles gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In 2004 in Athens, she won the doubles gold with Zhang Yining. She is 27 years old and comes from Liaoning.

The women's team's alternate is Li Xiaoxia, currently ranked third in the world.
The men will spend the next month training in Xiamen and the women will be in Zhengding.

Images: ITTF.com

Tags: Guo Yue, Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, table tennis, Wan Liqin, Wang Hao, Wang Nan, Zhang Yining