The 35-year-old Olympic champion in table tennis has created his own era and is the seventh Grand Slam player in table tennis history, taking only 445 days to complete a Grand Slam, making him the fastest player to complete a Grand Slam. Throughout his career, Zhang Jike has won double-digit world championship titles and has won five consecutive championships in three major competitions, so it can be said that Zhang Jike is a legend in the history of national table tennis.
But after staying away from the arena, Zhang Jike was riddled with scandals, he was exposed to gambling and voluntarily leaked nude photos of his ex-girlfriend Jing Tian, although Zhang Jike himself never responded to confirm, but his personal image was affected, resulting in a large number of endorsements being withdrawn. In the past 9 months, Zhang Jike has not appeared in the public eye, has remained low-key and silent, and his career development has entered a period of stagnation.
And Zhang Jike did not give up on himself, he is still active in the table tennis circle, on January 11, some netizens said that Zhang Jike appeared in a club in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province as a technical consultant, and then the club responded, and the staff confirmed that the training camp was taught by Zhang Jike himself, which means that Zhang Jike is indeed teaching here and continues his sports career with another identity. The club's training camps are run by the Daily Sports Table Tennis Club, with fees ranging from 4,000 yuan per month to 12,500 yuan per month.
As an Olympic champion-level athlete, Zhang Jike's role as a technical consultant is of great significance to this training camp, although Zhang Jike has some off-the-field scandals, his achievements as an athlete are real, relying on hard power to play a Grand Slam results, which can be recognized by the students can help the training camp attract business.
Looking back on the past, Zhang Jike's personal income at the peak of his career was very high, and he was once the highest-paid male athlete in Chinese sports every year, with a maximum of 60 million a year. At the same time, Zhang Jike is also a guest on many variety shows, and he will get a lot of income if he frequently participates in variety shows, and even participated in love variety shows, and he also pulled his parents to appear together.
It's a pity that Zhang Jike's development momentum came to an abrupt halt due to the gambling turmoil, and his influence on regaining first-line sports stars is very great, after all, he currently has no games, is in semi-retirement mode, and has not publicly responded to scandals such as alleged gambling. The last time Zhang Jike played in a competition was in 2019, and among the same batch of national table tennis players as him, only Ma Long is still in the national team, and the era of Zhang Jike has passed.
(Lin Xiaoxiang)