The Chinese Table Tennis Association announced the list of male and female representatives for this summer's Paris Olympics on the 14th. The men's singles lineup is the top two in the world, Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong. The women's singles are the top two in the world, Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng. The third person to participate in the men's team event is Ma Long, who is ranked No. 3 in the men's singles world, and the third person to participate in the women's team event is Wang Manyu, who is ranked No. 3 in the world. Liang Jingkun, ranked No. 4 in the men's singles world, and Wang Yidi, ranked No. 4 in the women's singles world, were selected for the national team as men's and women's Ap substitutes respectively.
The world's first sister Sun Yingsha
In this way, the Chinese table tennis team's singles, team and substitute lineups for the Paris Olympics are all composed of the top four players in the singles world rankings. Known as the kingdom of table tennis, China has won four consecutive Olympic championships in both men's team and singles. On the women's side, the women's team also won the Olympic women's team championship for 4 consecutive years, and the women's singles won the championship for 9 consecutive times since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and never lost the gold medal in this event. However, in the mixed doubles competition, the Chinese team lost to the Japanese pair of Mizutani Hayabusa/Ito Misei at the last Tokyo Olympics and won the silver medal. In addition, in the women's team final of the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan in February this year, the Chinese team was once forced to the edge of the cliff by the Japanese team, and there was even a sense of crisis in China.
Chen Meng got a ticket to the women's singles at the Paris Olympics
Japanese media said that the Chinese team selected two men's singles Olympic representatives in turn according to the world rankings, and Ma Long, the gold medalist of the Tokyo Olympics, became an important member of the team competition. Although Chen Meng was ranked fourth in the women's event (referring to Chen Meng's women's singles world ranking of No. 4 before May 14), she was selected as the singles representative as a gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics. "Considering the actual results, the Chinese team made a choice to change the order in terms of women's singles candidates."
In the team competition of the 2024 Busan World Table Tennis Championships, the Chinese women's team narrowly defeated Japan to win the championship.
The above choice of the national table tennis women's team is also based on the selection method formulated in the early stage. As of May 14, 2024, Sun Yingsha has performed eye-catching during the validity period, ranking first in the team with 30,050 points, 9,200 points in the world ranking, and 20,850 points in international competitions; Chen Meng ranked second with 17,960, with 6,410 and 11,550 bonus points in the world ranking and international competitions. Therefore, Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng will represent the squadron in the women's singles competition at the Paris Olympics and will automatically be selected for the women's team lineup. Wang Manyu has become the best candidate for the third member of the women's group with her stable performance.