On March 2, Beijing time, the International Table Tennis Federation and WTT officially announced that Russian and Belarusian players are not allowed to participate in international table tennis events organized by the International Table Tennis Federation. It is worth mentioning that the leader of WTT is Liu Guoliang. A paper ban that reminds people of Samsonov, the Belarusian star will be a 3-time world champion! It is reported that although Samsonov has previously announced his retirement, he is still active on the field.
The official statement read, "At present, Russian and Belarusian players and officials are not allowed to participate in THEA-related competitions, and the flags, national emblems, logos and national anthems of the two countries cannot be displayed." The future will change according to the situation. ”
It is worth mentioning that Liu Guoliang is the chairman of the WTT Council, and his goal is to lead and develop the future development of table tennis in the world in an all-round way. However, in the current situation, Liu Guoliang is also helpless and can only make such a decision.
The overall strength of Russian table tennis is average, and so is Belarus, but there is a legendary player in Belarus, that is, Samsonov!
Samsonov, 46, has played against many generations of national table tennis players, including Wang Tao, Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui in the early days, to Ma Lin, Wang Hao, Wang Liqin, ma Long, Zhang Jike, and now Fan Zhendong and Lin Gaoyuan.
In 1999, Samsonov became the world champion, and at that time, Samsonov successfully won the championship in the World Cup competition. In 2001, Samsonov defeated Wang Liqin in the World Cup final to win the world championship for the second time. In 2009, Samsonov was 33 years old, and in the World Cup, Samsonov once again made a big splash, defeating Ma Long, Chen Xuan and other good players to win the world championship for the third time.
In his career, Samsonov won a total of 27 tour titles, at one point the first in history, until he was later surpassed by Malone.
Thus, Samsonov is the greatest table tennis player in belarusian history, and even looking at the history of Belarusian sports, Samsonov is one of the most remarkable athletes.