On May 12, Beijing time, the No. 3 player of the German women's table tennis Olympic team and the Chinese straight board star Shan Xiaona revealed in the live broadcast: The German Table Tennis Association will not change the list of Olympic representatives, and Francesca can only serve as a P card in the Paris Olympics.
As we all know, the German Table Tennis Association announced the squad for the Paris Olympics on April 9:
Men's Singles: Qiu Dang, Ocharov; men's teams Qiu Dang, Ocharov, Pol; Men's P card Francesca
Women's Singles: Han Ying, Nina Mittram; Women's team: Han Ying, Nina Mittram, Shan Xiaona; The women's P card has not yet been confirmed
Mixed doubles: Qiu Dang, Nina Mittram
As soon as the list was released, it caused heated discussions, mainly for the men's team lineup. Because Qiu Dang, Ocharov, Pol and Francesca are actually difficult to clearly distinguish between the superior and the inferior, Francesca is very strong, and even has a significant advantage in many individual characteristics, but in April, he ranked fourth in the team, and according to the Olympic selection rules of the German Table Tennis Association, he can only be relegated to the P card.
However, in the just-concluded Saudi Arabia Grand Slam, Francesca created the best record in German men's table tennis, he rose to prominence in the second half of the region, and unexpectedly entered the men's singles final. Although he only won the runner-up in the final defeat to Wang Chuqin, the high points obtained by this result are enough to ensure that he will rise to the top 10 in the latest world ranking and become the new first brother of German men's table tennis. This ranking will continue until the start of the Paris Olympics, so all walks of life (including Francesca herself) have speculated that the German Table Tennis Association will not change the Olympic list and change Xiaofu into the lineup.
Shan Xiaona's live broadcast directly extinguished this thought. Shan Xiaona revealed, "Xiaofu will be in the top ten in the world next week, Germany is the first, we all know, but his ranking came a little late, if it was two months earlier, the Olympic squad would definitely have him, but now, our list will not change, Xiaofu can only serve as a P card." Although he and Bol's men's doubles cooperation is very good, now the men's team will not play the doubles because Xiaofu is gone, and has begun to prepare for the team competition Qiu Dang and Uncle Bo's doubles cooperation (the hidden information here is that the German men's team's Olympic team singles is Ocharov). ”
In fact, Xiao Fu's record in the Saudi Grand Slam this time is completely to fully release his self-achieving super-level performance in a stress-free state, and a major competition like the Olympics requires the ability to perform under high pressure. The German Table Tennis Association announced the Olympic list in early April, and the selection is "the top 3 players with the best performance under the pressure of competing for Olympic representatives", if you care about the state of the players in May and June, you will not announce the Olympic list early, and you can wait until June 18 to decide, just like Korean table tennis.
In the same way, the reason why the German Table Tennis Association locked Han Ying in the Olympic list early was also Han Ying's ability to withstand pressure. Han Ying ruptured her Achilles tendon at the Doha Star Challenge in early January, and has been away from the table for more than four months before she has resumed training with the ball, but the German Table Tennis Association still chose to believe her, included her in the Olympic squad early, and played in singles and team singles. As long as Han Ying can recover, there is still hope for us to be on the podium in the team competition. ”
The German men's team and women's team are one of the fierce rivals of the national table tennis team in the global team competition, the German men's team has swam into the medal area for many consecutive Olympic Games, and the German women's team has also won the Olympic team silver medal under the leadership of Han Ying. Therefore, whether Xiaofu enters the lineup or not still has a great impact on the preparation of national table tennis and the trend of the Ba'ao battle. Now that the dust has settled, the national table tennis and other associations interested in the medal area of the team competition should make targeted arrangements.
Francesca, the "first brother P card", will also become an alternative story in the world table tennis world.