Why did you go all the way to the mixed doubles final? Unraveling the mystery of the North Korean table tennis team

Chengdu Business Daily Red Star News

2024-07-30 10:58Posted on the official account of Red Star News of Chengdu Business Daily, Sichuan

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01 The North Korean table tennis team showed its mysterious strength at the Paris Olympics, and mixed doubles players Lee Jung-sik and Kim Jin-young advanced to the final.

02Although North Korean players rarely appear on the court of the International Table Tennis League, they often bring surprises in major competitions such as the Olympic Games.

03 The mixed doubles combination of Lee Jung-sik and Kim Qin-young has a special style of play, the female player has a fast forehand blocking speed, the landing point is accurate, and the male player stands far away.

04 China's Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha will face North Korea tonight for the first gold medal in mixed doubles, and it is expected to be a tough match.

05 The athletes of the North Korean team have solid basic skills, strict training, and show strong table tennis skills.

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This evening (30th), Beijing time, the Paris Olympics will usher in the first gold medal in table tennis - mixed doubles.

The Chinese pair of Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha advanced to the final, which everyone could have expected in advance. But their opponent in the final was a pair of North Korean players known as the "Mysterious Division", which many fans must have not expected before.

Judging from the tactics and competitive state shown by these two pairs in their previous matches, the author believes that their odds of winning or losing tonight are five to five.

There is no shortage of top masters in the "Mystery Division".

The World Table Tennis Championships once caused the Chinese team to lose the championship

The North Korean players are known as the "mysterious division", and the North Korean players are basically not seen on the WTT field of the International Table Tennis Federation. In the most important competitions such as the Olympic Games, Asian Games, and World Championships, several North Korean players will flash. But every time the North Korean players come on the court, it will bring surprises to the audience, and it will also make the opponents who have not usually faced each other a little frightened.

In the first round of the mixed doubles competition, the little-known North Korean pair of Lee Jung-sik and Kim Qin-young caused a big upset as soon as they appeared, defeating second seeds Tomokazu Changmoto and Hina Hayada 4-1. The latter did his best to climb to No. 2 in the world before the Olympics, aiming to avoid an early confrontation with the Chinese team in order to make it all the way to the final, but ended up upsetting the "first round".

▲North Korean pair Lee Jung-sik/Kim Jin-young (left) in the game. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Dongzhen

In fact, when it comes to the North Korean table tennis team, although they rarely enter the field of vision of table tennis fans, in fact, they have always been a world powerhouse, and there have been many powerful table tennis stars. For example, in the 70s of the last century, there was a North Korean table tennis player named Park Yingsoon, who achieved two consecutive women's singles championships at the World Table Tennis Championships.

In 1991, North Korea and Korea formed a joint team to participate in the World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. Among them, North Korea's Li Fanji and Yu Shunfu performed very eye-catching in that competition, especially Yu Shunfu, who was completely "crazy", scoring two points in the team final, making the Chinese team lose the world championship.

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, a little-known female player of the North Korean team, Kim Hyang-mi, also reached the final "in the dark". Although Zhang Yining won 4:0 with superior skills, the fact that he was able to reach the final in the Olympics shows the superb skills of the North Korean players.

This time in the Paris Olympics, the coach of the North Korean team is called Kim Hyuk-bong, who was also a very good table tennis player, especially in the mixed doubles event. He teamed up with Kim Joong, a North Korean women's player, and won mixed doubles gold medals at the World Championships, East Asian Games, and Asian Games. At that time, there was no mixed doubles event at the Olympics, and their results were considered the "Grand Slam" of mixed doubles at the time.

Lee Jung-sik and Kim Jin-young, who were brought out by Kim Hyuk-bong as coaches, showed a very high level as soon as they appeared in Paris. 16-8 against Japan's Tomotoshi Haramoto and Hina Hayata, 8-4 against Sweden's Carlsen and Carlberg, and Hong Kong's Wong Chun-ting and To Hoi Kin in the semi-finals.

The eliminated pairs of players are all currently ranked extremely high in mixed doubles in the world table tennis world, and they are all at the top level in the world in terms of technology and tactics. Except for the 4-3 victory against Hwang Jin-ting/Do, the young North Korean players advanced by a wide margin.

The North Korean "dark horse" combination has a special style of play

The Chinese team wants to win the first gold medal in the mixed doubles Olympics or go through a tough battle

In the author's opinion, Lee Jung-sik and Kim Jin-young are an excellent mixed doubles pair. First of all, they are one left and one right: the male player Lee Jung-sik is the right-handed double-sided anti-glue, and the female player Kim Qin-young has a forehand and a long glue backhand. Now among the mixed doubles players in the world table tennis world, such a match is relatively rare, especially the long rubber of the female player's backhand.

Lee Jung-sik has a very high level of backhand twisting and pulling in the game, and sometimes he will suddenly twist some high-quality balls. But his biggest killer feature is still the forehand, which has a very strong speed and power spin. Lee Jung-sik's overall style of play is somewhat similar to Korea's Zhang Yuzhen, but Lee Jung-sik is taller than Zhang Yuzhen, and the care surface is larger than Zhang Yuzhen, and the cooperation with the female player Kim Qinying is very clear, the female player stands near the platform, and the male player stands on the far platform.

The biggest feature of this pair of players is that the female player's forehand blocking speed is fast, the landing point is accurate, and more importantly, her backhand long rubber shot, will hit some very weird balls, so that the opponent directly misses or it is difficult to return the high-quality ball, so as to create opportunities for the male player's forehand fierce attack.

▲North Korea's Lee Jung-sik/Kim Jin-young defeated Hong Kong's Wong Chun-ting/To Hoi-king to advance to the final. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Dongzhen

The athletes of the North Korean team have one characteristic, that is, their basic skills are extremely solid. The North Korean athletes are trained very rigorously, and once they participate in international competitions, they show a strong table tennis skills with their consistency and low error rate, as well as their extremely high level of power, speed, spin and landing points.

Tomokazu Zhangmoto, a player of the Japan team who was eliminated in the first round, said that in fact, his performance was normal, but the special playing style of the North Korean players and the accuracy of the power landing point made them really uncomfortable.

Tonight, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, who have high hopes for national table tennis, will face this pair of North Korean players to fight for the first table tennis mixed doubles Olympic gold medal in the history of the Chinese team. It is expected to be a close and very tough match.

The author believes that the strength of the Chinese team is that both players are ranked No. 1 in the singles world, and they are undoubtedly the leaders in the world table tennis today in terms of skills and tactics.

The disadvantage of the Chinese team is that they have never faced the North Korean team head-to-head, and their style of play is relatively unfamiliar. In particular, the backhand long rubber of the North Korean female players made the athletes in front suffer a lot, and the cooperation of this pair of players did not only rely on the backhand long rubber as the only support point for tactics. For example, in the semi-finals, Hwang Jin-ting and Du Kaiqin basically ate the long glue of the female players in the latter part of the match, but this pair of North Korean players immediately combined some new tactics and played at a very high level.

It's going to be a great matchup tonight. Let's wait and see and look forward to a heart-wrenching match that will go down in the history of table tennis.

Red Star News Special Commentator Ruofeng

Editor: Zhang Xun, Editor: Feng Lingling

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