The 2021 Houston World Table Tennis Championships is about to start, and the International Table Tennis Federation announced that Chinese male player Lin Gaoyuan will partner American female player Zhang An, and American male player Kanak Jha will partner Chinese female player Wang Manyu to participate in the next mixed doubles competition!
This year marks the 50th anniversary of "Sino-US table tennis diplomacy", after the Chinese Table Tennis Association and the American Table Tennis Association submitted an application to the International Table Tennis Federation to allow mixed doubles teams to participate, and the ITTF Executive Committee met on November 21 local time and approved the request.
Sports have no borders, transnational combinations have long been commonplace in the sports world, and the Chinese table tennis team, which has always been proud, has taken the initiative to open a cross-border pairing tour since the 2013 Korea Open, which also triggered the resolution adopted by the Council of the International Table Tennis Federation on May 3, 2014 during the World Table Tennis Championships in Tokyo: from the 2015 Suzhou World Table Tennis Championships individual events to allow transnational combinations to participate.
"Although the U.S. government is not friendly to the Chinese people, the American people are good friends of the Chinese people."
During the 31st World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, in April 1971, Chinese player Zhuang Zedong took the risk of being kind to the American athlete Glenn Cowan, who got on the wrong train, and also opened the door to Sino-US friendship.
Zhuang Zedong's behavior was praised by Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou, who called it "turning a big ball with a small ball", and since then there have been a series of interactions between the two countries:
On April 10, 1971, the American table tennis delegation and a small group of American journalists arrived in Beijing, becoming the first Americans to be allowed to enter China since 1949.
From July 9 to 11, 1971, Dr. Kissinger, Assistant to the United States for National Security Affairs, visited China and reached an agreement on President Nixon's visit to China.
On February 21, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon arrived in Beijing to coexist with Premier Zhou Enlai and other Chinese leaders in the "Week of Changing the World," which normalized Sino-AMERICAN relations.
Now the "ping-pong diplomacy" that shocked China and foreign countries has been 50 years old, Mr. Zhuang Zedong has passed away in 2013, but sports and peace in the world are evergreen, "sports bring peace!" At the Houston site, Nixon's grandson Christopher Nixon Cox said: "Today, in the face of the pandemic, sport has once again brought people together safely. This deserves to be remembered by history. ”
This year's World Table Tennis Championships in Houston, USA, next year will be in Chengdu, it is a coincidence that these are all cities where the consulate was lost by former US President Trump, the Sino-US table tennis love continues, I wish the two multinational teams Lin Gaoyuan / Zhang An, Kanak / Wang Manyu to achieve good results!
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