2008 Olympic Games - China Dominant - But This Too Will Pass?
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| Ma Lin Bags a Big One at Last! Photo By: Kazuyuki Takahashi, by courtesy of the ITTF. |
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What most informed table tennis followers thought would happen did in fact happen at the 2008 Olympic Games - China took a clean sweep of the individual medals to go with their side order of teams gold. With Ma Lin, Wang Hao and Wang Liqin grabbing the glory (and medals) in the Men's Singles event, compatriots Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and Guo Yue were not to be outdone, managing the same feat in the Women's Singles.
There are a number of positive benefits for table tennis from these Olympic Games - excellent media coverage, some entertaining matches, and hopefully greater exposure to the general public among them. I wonder whether table tennis associations around the world are ready for the hopefully large influx of new beginners inspired by the Olympic dream? And finally, here's a question from that persistent little inner voice that keeps nagging at me - we already knew that China is the dominant nation in table tennis - the 2008 World Championships told us that. Was the Olympics less exciting due to that dominance? Would table tennis be better off if China decided to truly open up and share it's training techniques with the rest of the world, allowing more even competition? Or is China happy to be the top dog in a sport that the public may end up viewing as a peculiarly Chinese passion only? |