Liu Guoliang was silent, the International Table Tennis Federation refused to apologize, and the two major teams may refuse to come to China to compete next year
The first mixed team World Cup schedule has come to a successful conclusion, and after the new format and rules adopted for this competition, it is also a mixed bag, from my personal point of view, this new competition system, the new scoring rules are still relatively good, and it is also a very bold and even good attempt. In the past, team competitions were best-of-three in each game, and whoever won three of the five events won the game, but now there is a certain degree of malleability. For example, if you lose the first three games 1:2, you still have a chance to win the score in the next two games, and finally win the whole game, but if you follow the previous rules, this game has ended early, so I think this change is actually a very good change and attempt.
But in this competition, we saw an extremely embarrassing scene at the last moment. Because the game between the Chinese team and the South Korean team ended early, and the Chinese team won the championship, the Swedish team and our provincial team, which were competing for the qualifying round on another field at that time, were directly interrupted in the game, and then awarded awards to the Chinese team, and then let them play after the awards. In fact, any competition is actually the end of the whole competition after you have finished awarding the awards, and forcibly interrupting another ongoing competition to present the awards is undoubtedly disrespectful to the Swedish team and our provincial team, and it also greatly affects the participation experience.
After the end of this competition, the ITTF also announced. The mixed team World Cup competition will continue in November next year, still in Chengdu, and even in the next four years, the four competitions will be settled in Chengdu, which shows that Chengdu's ability to host has been recognized by the ITTF, but the greater embarrassment is that no one wants to hold this kind of competition, so it will all be held in Chengdu.
The embarrassing scene at the awards ceremony, even our Chinese fans are not used to such forcible disrespect for the opponent. In fact, the appeal of the Mixed Team World Cup is very low, especially for these top European players. Originally, the ITTF sent out 18 invitations, and at the beginning only 13 countries were willing to participate, and the first competition almost died because of the lack of teams, at least you have to have enough 16 teams to be grouped. In the end, the ITTF temporarily changed the rules. The contestants who participated in the competition this time will receive corresponding points after winning the competition, which can attract some European players to come and participate.
But even so, like the German team is completely sent to the second team to participate, the number one star of the Swedish team Moregard also did not come, people still look down on this competition, including our provincial team, in fact, at the beginning was not willing to send players over, but in the end they were willing to participate in the competition under the blessing of this kind of points, but after the award ceremony is so troublesome, and next year because it is still held in Chengdu, these countries are still willing to participate in the competition, it is difficult to say, the prize money itself is not very much, and the points are not particularly obvious for these top masters。
After the game, neither the International Table Tennis Federation nor WTT Chairman Liu Guoliang made any apology for this incident. The Swedish team and our provincial team were made to behave like this, didn't people's hearts also cool down? Emotionally, I didn't want to come, and after you made such a fuss, it's hard to say whether these 18 teams can be put together in the next competition.