Samsonov, 45, decided to retire. On July 8, 2021, Beijing time, after announcing his withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympic Games due to injury on July 6, the official website of the Belarusian Table Tennis Association released news that samsonov, the country's table tennis star, announced his retirement and ended his career as an athlete.
He has played against five generations of national table tennis
Samsonov's retirement has sparked a heated discussion among fans and a wave of memories. Because Samsonov is known as the evergreen tree of the world table tennis in the table tennis session, he is also the elder of table tennis in the 6th Olympic Games, and has played with five generations of national table tennis, including Wang Tao, Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui, Ma Lin, Zhang Jike, Ma Long, and is known as the "evergreen tree of table tennis" by Chinese fans.
Samsonov, born on April 17, 1976, entered the Dynamo Sports School in Minsk at the age of 7 to study table tennis, and at the age of 16 won the third place in men's singles at the National Championships of the USSR.
In 1996, the 20-year-old Samsonov made his debut at the Atlanta Olympics and has played six times so far.
Not long ago, Samsonov won a men's singles ticket to the Tokyo Olympics with the advantage of rankings, and many people were waiting for the 45-year-old veteran to play in the Olympic Games for the seventh time. But in the end, the news of Samsonov's retirement came. Although Samsonov did not announce the reason for his retirement, many professionals speculate that Samsonov may have made this series of decisions because of his physical injuries and age.
Samsonov has won several European championships and World Cup titles and runners-up, and has also served as chairman of the ITTF Athletes' Committee for seven consecutive years. Although retired, in the future, he will continue to serve as vice president of the European Table Tennis Federation and carry out related work.
Unfortunately, I did not win an Olympic medal once
In a career of nearly 30 years, he has won 27 world championships, including three World Cup singles titles, second only to the four crowns of national table tennis stars Marlene and Fan Zhendong. On the ITTF Tour, Samsonov won a total of 27 championships, a record that was not surpassed by China's Ma Long until the 2019 China Open. Sadly, he never won an Olympic medal.
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 also learned other things, such as how to adapt to the conditions of the game faster. ”
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Samsonov was just one step away from the medal, and he lost to Mizutani Hayabusa in the men's singles bronze medal match, which was his closest to the medal.
In addition to his outstanding athletic performance, Samsonov is also loved by many fans for his humble and low-key and polite manners.
Jimu news reporter Lin Chuhan synthesized online news
(Image from Xinhua News Agency)
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