The main players of the national table tennis team are currently actively preparing for the New Year's event, and for the men's team, their first major of the new year will soon arrive, which is the WTT Men's Finals next week. For the women's team, they also have to prepare for the Doha Planet Challenge, including preparing for the World Table Tennis Championships team competition that will start in February with the men's team.
The most important event of national table tennis in 2024 is naturally the Olympic Games that will open in Paris, France in July. Although the current squad of the Olympic Games has not been fully determined, the list of some functional personnel has been officially announced today, and the Chinese Table Tennis Association officially released an important appointment on the official website today, this time, the leader of the Chinese table tennis team will be served by He Xiaolai.
He Xiao is a relatively unfamiliar name for national table tennis fans, even for senior fans, because his official position in the Chinese Table Tennis Association is not particularly high, unlike Qin Zhijian, the secretary general of the Table Tennis Association. In addition, he is not a professional table tennis player, and naturally he is not our star coach. But in fact, He Xiao is the functional personnel of the Chinese table tennis team for 2 Olympic Games.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, he was the team's interpreter and was in charge of external liaison. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, his role was further elevated, and he was responsible for the entire outreach, that is, . He is no longer just involved as a translator, he has become a department manager. In 2024, this will be his third Olympic Games, and he has finally been promoted to become the team leader.
The team leader is actually equivalent to what we call a project manager. If the Chinese table tennis team's participation in the Olympic Games is regarded as a major event, the team leader is actually the person in charge of the project. The scope of his responsibilities is focused, such as technical, including the training of athletes, and he does not interfere. But as athletes, including coaches, they will arrange the training to He Xiao, and he needs to communicate with the outside world to contact these training times, and if there is a conflict in the venue time, we may need to change the training time. As for other jobs, such as administrative management and external liaison work, these may need to be managed by He Xiaolai, which is equivalent to a minister of the logistics department and a big housekeeper, so this position is very important.
The Chinese table tennis team leader of the last Tokyo Olympics was personally served by Liu Guoliang, and this time Liu Guoliang did not choose to be re-elected. And it can be said that if it is this Paris Olympics, he will be less involved in the affairs of the Chinese team, because he is neither a coach nor a team leader, so theoretically it will not have much to do with the Chinese table tennis team at least during the Paris Olympics. Of course, for Liu Guoliang, this is also a very normal phenomenon. Because Liu Guoliang is now the first vice president of the International Table Tennis Federation, it is said that he belongs to the leadership of an international organization, and if he is in charge of the affairs of the Chinese team, it is a little inappropriate, so it is inevitable to choose to step down from some domestic work.