Goodbye Legend! The 36-year-old world champion completely lost his rankings and won gold against Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen in a row

Veterans do not die, they will only wither.

Beijing time on March 28, the ITTF announced the world ranking list for the 13th week of 2023, when the names of Fan Zhendong, Sun Yingsha and others were talked about by fans again and again, only a few people found that all the points of a legendary star had been quietly emptied, thus completely losing their ranking - and last week, she was still 42nd in women's singles.

She used to be a member of the Chinese table tennis world, but because of the failure of the competition stopped at the national second team, and finally chose to leave her hometown to develop, she did not expect to score 2 points in a row at the World Table Tennis Championships, led the team to defeat the powerful national table tennis and realized the dream of a world champion, and also became the number one opponent of the Chinese team, but now she has completely left the arena and went to Peking University for further study and ushered in a new life.

Feng Tianwei, the once famous table tennis player, do you remember?

Born in August 1986 in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China, Feng Tianwei began to learn football at the age of 5, she showed a very high talent from a young age, and later won the National Junior Championship and reached the national second team, like countless geniuses from all over the country, she continued to chase her dream of world championship.

However, in a critical period of her career, Feng Tianwei suffered the blow of her father's death due to illness, and later lost only one place in the competition for promotion to the first team of the national table tennis team, and then was diagnosed with myocardial disease.

As she grew older, it was already difficult for Feng Tianwei to stand out in the national ping, but at that time, she did not think that she would become a member of the vast "overseas corps" until a noble person in her life appeared.

That is Liu Guoliang's own brother - Liu Guodong.

After learning of Feng Tianwei's situation, Liu Guodong intended to take him to Singapore to work hard. Like Feng Tianwei, Liu Guodong has also entered the national table tennis table, but his results are far worse than his younger brother, and he can only undertake tasks such as sparring for women's team players, but he also has an understanding of the situation of women's players.

Later, Liu Guodong went abroad to develop and worked as a coach in Singapore, because the level of local players is average, so he hopes to introduce more Chinese athletes, which can not only improve the team's performance, but also provide more development opportunities for domestic unsatisfactory players.

In this way, the two hit it off and became an important member of the Singapore women's team: no one at that time, including them, would have imagined that Feng Tianwei would become a world champion in Singapore and defeat the Chinese team in the final.

It's a pity that at the moment of winning the championship, Liu Guodong has already been squeezed out of Singapore.

After coming to Nanyang, Feng Tianwei quickly found her feeling, and her achievements have developed by leaps and bounds, and she was already the number two main player of the Singapore women's team before the Beijing Olympics, and became the number one person after the Beijing Olympics.

Although she was fully inferior in the competition with Zhang Yining and others, when the opponent was replaced by younger national table tennis stars such as Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen, Feng Tianwei just came to the age where her skills and experience were the most perfect match, and then soared into the sky at the 2010 Singapore World Table Tennis Championships, leading the team to break through the Chinese table tennis women's team, which was known as invincible at that time.

In that battle, Feng Tianwei first broke Ding Ning, then defeated Liu Shiwen, won two consecutive games to overturn the national table tennis team, and became the only athlete who scored 2 points in the World Table Tennis Championships after Persson in 2000 and Zhang Benzhihe in 2022.

It is also in the women's team competition with a greater advantage in national table tennis.

It is especially worth mentioning that Feng Tianwei's teammates are all athletes who have been "eliminated" by the Chinese table tennis scene, including Wang Yuegu and Sun Beibei who played on the field, as well as Yu Mengyu and Li Jiawei sitting on the stage, and it is incredible that they defeated the Chinese national team!

It is said that before the women's team final, the ratings of the World Table Tennis Championships were not high, because everyone felt that the result was not suspenseful, but unexpectedly the news suddenly came out that the national table tennis was going to lose, which immediately attracted countless fans to return to TV and computers to watch the game.

I have to say that Feng Tianwei and her teammates created a miracle in the table tennis world that year.

After that, although Feng Tianwei failed to win the world championship again, she still defeated the main force of National Table Tennis many times, and even swept Chen Meng 4-0 at the age of 33.

But no matter how tenacious a fighter is, there will be a curtain call, and Feng Tianwei is no exception.

In September 2022, on the eve of the start of the Chengdu World Table Tennis Championships, Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao revealed that 36-year-old Feng Tianwei had faded out of the arena, joining the sports development team of the sports council in his country on the one hand, and going to Peking University to study for a master's degree in sports industry management on the other hand.

Although Feng Tianwei said that if she had the opportunity, she would like to participate in the competition and win honors for the Singapore team, but from the perspective of age and other aspects, these are likely to be polite words - sure enough, less than a year later, Feng Tianwei completely lost the world ranking.

Although the era that belonged to Feng Tianwei is long gone, we believe that her deeds will still infect countless people who struggle in the table tennis world, so that everyone believes those familiar words: there will be miracles if there is courage, and love to fight will win!