Recently, 2 former national table tennis Grand Slam players Kong Linghui and Zhang Jike appeared to work together to create momentum for a table tennis event. Compared with Zhang Jike, who is tall, handsome in appearance, and cool with sunglasses, Kong Linghui has an obvious figure, the whole person looks very old, and the hairline has also moved back a lot. Of course, Kong Linghui is 46 years old, such an age to aging, is also an inevitable result, just see his current appearance, many fans can't help but sigh, hoping that he can come back and return to the national table tennis coaching.
Kong Linghui and Liu Guoliang were golden partners when they were players, winning the 1996 and 2000 Olympic singles titles respectively, and as doubles partners, they were invincible all over the world. After retiring, the two entered the national team coaching staff and became close comrades again. Under the joint leadership of Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui, the Chinese table tennis team entered a period of rapid development, and a number of athletes of the "Great Devil" level emerged. Especially in the two Olympic cycles of 2012 and 2016, Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui cooperated tacitly to help the national table tennis achieve the championship.
At that time, Liu Guoliang was the head of the national table tennis team, mainly responsible for coaching the men's team, and the women's team was handed over to Kong Linghui. Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen both grew up to be the bearers of the national table tennis women's team under the guidance of Kong Linghui, and Li Xiaoxia's late success was also due to Kong Linghui's knowledge of people and good responsibilities. However, just when Kong Linghui's coaching career reached its peak, he was in trouble because of a scandal. Although Kong Linghui has repeatedly clarified that this matter is somewhat unjust, the national table tennis teaming decided to dismiss him in order to eliminate the negative impact.
Since 2017, Kong Linghui has been away from the national team for almost 5 years, during which time he rarely appears in public, and occasionally appears in commercial activities. It is understood that Kong Linghui seems to be interested in the purple sand pot and turned into a businessman, but because he himself has never publicly brought goods or done publicity, what the former national table tennis feats are doing, the outside world can only speculate wildly. This time, Kong Linghui rarely appeared, or participated in table tennis activities, surrounded by former disciple Zhang Jike, it is easy to think that this is to create momentum for the return to the national table tennis.
During the Olympic Games last summer, the national table tennis exposed some problems, the women's team veteran coach Li Falcon is about to retire, the health is not very good, must find a successor for him as soon as possible. After Marlene entered the coaching position, she worked very hard, and Chen Meng also made great progress under his leadership. However, Liu Shiwen and Xu Xin lost the mixed doubles gold medal, and the outside world generally believed that it was related to Ma Lin's lack of experience and command mistakes. Therefore, most fans are not optimistic about Ma Lin succeeding Li Falcon, believing that at the current stage, Kong Linghui will return and be mainly responsible for the training of female players, which is more in line with the actual needs of national table tennis. Of course, these are the visions of fans, whether Kong Linghui can return to national table tennis, mainly depends on how the national team looks at his scandal that year, how the specific situation develops, only time can tell us the answer.