On the morning of May 7, the official website of the Chinese Table Tennis Association announced part of the list of participants in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Among them, the men's singles and mixed doubles lists are fully confirmed, and Wang Chuqin is on the list in both events, which means that he will compete in the men's team, men's singles and mixed doubles events at the Paris Olympics, becoming the first Chinese table tennis player in history to confirm that he has completed three events in a single Olympic Games. In addition, Wang Chuqin is also the first post-00 male national player to participate in the Olympic Games as an official team member.
At present, Wang Chuqin is ranked No. 1 in the men's singles world rankings, and he and Sun Yingsha are also in the leading position in the mixed doubles world rankings. As one of the two men's singles players in the national table tennis team, Wang Chuqin automatically qualified for the men's team, so that he has the opportunity to challenge for gold medals in the men's team, men's singles and mixed doubles events during the Paris Olympics.
This will be Wang's first time competing as an official member of the Olympic Games, having attended the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021 as a P-card player, but he was not crowned Olympic champion like China's Wang Manyu in the men's team event due to not playing in the men's team event.
It is worth mentioning that Wang Chuqin is the first athlete in the history of national table tennis to be confirmed to participate in 3 events in an Olympic Games. Table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988, and the eight Olympic Games held between 1988 and 2016 consisted of two events for men and two for each athlete, with each athlete competing in a maximum of two events in a single Olympic Games. Seven years ago, table tennis mixed doubles became an Olympic event, and it was Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen who represented the national table tennis in the mixed doubles competition of the Tokyo Olympics, but they did not compete in the singles event. Wang Chuqin of the Paris Olympics participated in 3 events at the same time, which was the first in the history of the founding table tennis Olympics. At present, the Chinese Table Tennis Association has not announced the women's singles participants for the Paris Olympics, and according to the current situation, Sun Yingsha, who is ranked No. 1 in the world, is likely to shoulder the same heavy responsibility of three events as Wang Chuqin.
Since 1988, 28 national players have been on the Olympic championship podium, among which Wang Nan and Ma Lin have won gold medals in three events: team, singles and doubles, but neither of them won three gold medals in one Olympic Games. At the Paris Olympics, Wang Chuqin is expected to set a new record.