On May 14, the Chinese Table Tennis Association announced the lineup for the Paris Olympics, which was basically the same as the previous predictions of fans.
In the men's singles, Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong qualified for the singles.
In women's singles, it was Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng who qualified for the singles.
In Mixed Doubles, Sun Yingsha/Wang Chuqin qualified for the Mixed Doubles.
The men's team is composed of Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong and Ma Long, and the women's team is composed of Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng and Wang Manyu!
But what is more surprising is that the P card players are not played by young players as many fans predicted before, but by 28-year-old Liang Jingkun and 27-year-old Wang Yidi as P cards.
This result is indeed a bit unexpected.
Why? Want to know why? Let's first review the afterlife and present life of the P card.
In fact, the P card is from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, mainly in the Beijing Olympics, the men's and women's teams replaced the previous men's and women's doubles, each association can only have three players in the main competition, but once one of the three players is injured and can not continue to play, each association will also have a substitute player, can replace the injured athlete!
At the time of the Beijing Olympics of national table tennis, the P card player, the men's side was Chen Xi, and the women's side was Li Xiaoxia.
At that time, Chen Xi was selected for the P card mainly because of his outstanding doubles ability, and he partnered with Ma Lin to win the men's doubles championship in the 2004 Olympic Games!
And Li Xiaoxia was selected mainly because she is relatively young and has strength, and she is a key object in the future!
Everyone knows what happened later, four years later, Li Xiaoxia became a singles competitor in the London Olympics!
At the time of the London Olympics, the P card on the men's side was Xu Xin, Xu Xin was 21 years old at the time, and the P card on the women's side was Liu Shiwen, who was also 21 years old at the time!
The main reason why the two of them can be selected is that they are stronger, and the other is that they are relatively young and have more training value!
Four years later, at the Rio Olympics, Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen, the P card players of that year, became official members of the Olympic team!
At the Rio Olympics, the P card player was Fan Zhendong for men and Zhu Yuling for women.
This can also be seen that Fan Zhendong and Zhu Yuling at that time were young athletes that the coaching staff focused on cultivating!
And Fan Zhendong also became a singles player in the Tokyo Olympics at the Tokyo Olympics four years later, while Zhu Yuling finally passed by the Olympics due to injuries and foreign wars!
At the Tokyo Olympics, the P card player, the man was Wang Chuqin, and the woman was Wang Manyu!
Three years later, at the Paris Olympics, Wang Chuqin was already a singles player in the Paris Olympics, and Wang Manyu also became an official member of the women's team!
Judging from the above analysis, in the history of national table tennis, more of the P card players in each Olympic Games are preparing for the next Olympic Games, and most of them are very young players, who may become the absolute main players in the team in the next Olympic cycle!
But this time in the Paris Olympics, our P card players are 28-year-old Liang Jingkun and 27-year-old Wang Yidi!
It's really hard to imagine that in Los Angeles four years from now, will we have to let Liang Jingkun, who is 32 years old at that time, and Wang Yidi, who is 31 years old, play?
As we all know, the main reason why national table tennis can maintain its longevity is that our echelon construction can always cultivate very young and excellent players in time!
I remember that after the 2021 World Table Tennis Championships in Houston, the then men's table tennis head coach Qin Zhijian once said that the replacement of the old and new in our men's table tennis has been completed!
However, the reality is that three years have passed, and we can only rely on the 36-year-old veteran Ma Long!
Among the young players, in addition to Wang Chuqin, who is already 24 years old, who else has rushed out?
And what about the women? What kind of young athletes have been cultivated in the past three years? Our three contestants are still the same as the three contestants from three years ago, and there is not a single new face!
Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu are no longer young, Sun Yingsha is almost 24 years old, and Wang Manyu is also 25 years old, at such an age, she is actually the youngest athlete among the five main forces of women's table tennis!
Where are the young players on the women's side? How many young players have been cultivated in the past few years?
What about the good echelon construction?