On July 6, 17 days before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, the International Table Tennis Federation issued an announcement: Samsonov, a 45-year-old international table tennis star, confirmed his withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Because the INTERNATIONAL Table Tennis Federation did not release the reason for Samsonov's withdrawal, it triggered a heated discussion among fans. On July 8, the official website of the Belarusian Table Tennis Association released the news that after withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympic Games due to injury, the country's table tennis star Samsonov announced his retirement on Thursday to end his career as an athlete.
This was supposed to be Samsonov's seventh Olympic run. He was also originally one of the fifth table tennis players to compete in the Olympics seven times.
In 1996, at the age of 20, Samsonov made his debut at the Atlanta Olympics. Earlier, Samsonov, 45, had said: "I always wanted to win an Olympic medal. This dream has not yet come true, but maybe it is my motivation to continue to struggle. If you want to achieve something, you have to work hard, which is the only secret to success. Of course, as I get older, my physical strength and speed may decrease, but on the other hand, I have also learned other things, such as learning how to adapt to the conditions of the game faster. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Samsonov managed to qualify for the semi-finals and eventually passed the medal.
Samsonov once played with 5 generations of national table tennis, when he first debuted, he faced mainly Kong Linghui Liu Guoliang, and then the opponent became Wang Liqin Ma Lin, and then became Wang Hao Chen Xuan, etc., and then played Zhang Jike Malong Xu Xin, and also had a confrontation with Fan Zhendong Wang Chuqin, the representative of the new generation of the current national table tennis generation, and he was even known as the "evergreen tree of table tennis" by Chinese fans.
From entering the professional table tennis world in 1995 until retiring, Samsonov has won the Men's Table Tennis World Cup three times, second only to the four crowns of national table tennis stars Ma Lin and Fan Zhendong. On the ITTF Tour, Samsonov won a total of 27 titles. This record was not surpassed by China's Ma Long until the 2019 China Open.
With Samsonov's retirement, another table tennis legend came to an end. I wish Lao Sa happiness in his future life.