The first case in the table tennis world! Misei Ito created the most embarrassing one, and the defeat in the Olympics reflects the cruelty of competitive sports

For Ito, who turned 23 just over three months ago, it must have been painful and embarrassing to miss the Paris 2024 Olympic shuttle, after all, she is in the prime of her sports career, after all, she has the status of Tokyo Olympic champion. A reminder: Before retiring, Misei Ito was the first player to attend the Olympics as the defending champion.

Ito is young but made her debut early, having endured the stormy Rio Olympics in 2016 at the age of 16, when she and her teammates finished third in the women's team. Since 2017, Misei Ito and his teammate Miyu Hirano of the same age began to attack the national table tennis, and the fierce attacks of the two made the Chinese female players suffer a lot, and Misei Ito has become a superstar in the international table tennis world. He was ranked second in the world at one point, and has repeatedly performed well in the competitiveness with Chinese players, winning honors such as the Japan, Sweden and Austria Opens.

More than two years ago, the Tokyo Olympics were the most perfect performance for Ito since her debut, as she and Hayabusa Mizutani unexpectedly defeated world No. 1 and world champions Xu Xin/Liu Shiwen in the mixed doubles final to win Japan's first Olympic gold medal in history and the first mixed doubles title in Olympic history. For a time, the small player was very beautiful.

However, after all, Ito is facing the Chinese women's table tennis who has been leading the world table tennis for fifty or sixty years. In the face of the national table tennis superiority's ability to see and dismantle moves, Ito's hand-to-hand fighting style is gradually becoming less threatening, and her slightly thin skills and tactics do not have an advantage in the team competition. The world ranking is a barometer of a player's competitiveness in the international arena, and now, Ito's world ranking has fallen to 10th, and she is not only thrown off a few streets by Chinese opponents Sun Yingsha, Wang Yidi, Wang Manyu, Chen Meng, etc., but also no longer in the leading position in the team, Hina Hayada has been ranked higher than her. Although the current world ranking is stronger than Miu Hirano and super rookie Miwa Zhangmoto, but in the selection of the Olympic points system formulated by the Japanese team, she falls behind Miu Hirano, only slightly Miwa Zhangmoto, but in front of the talented teenager born in 2008, Ito's age and style of play determine that her upside is quite limited, in this case, the Japanese Table Tennis Association set Miwa Zhang as the third choice of the women's team at the Paris Olympics, which is not unexpected.

Table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988, and 37 gold medals have been decided, of which 32 gold medals are written under the name of national table tennis, and the other 5 gold medals are won by 7 players from South Korea, Sweden and Japan. Among the 7 people, Liu Nankui, Xuan Jinghe, Waldner, and Liu Chengmin all participated in the next Olympic Games as defending champions, and Liang Yingzi and Mizutani Hayabusa retired bravely after winning the Olympic championship. Now Ito's failure to qualify for the Paris Olympics has broken the convention that the current Olympic champion of the Table Tennis Association must embark on the journey to defend his title. At this time, Ito was at the lowest point in his table tennis life, which also reflected the cruelty of competitive sports.