In April 2006, the 48th World Table Tennis Championships kicked off in Bremen, Germany, and many Chinese fans watched their own team's results while expressing great concern for the dynamics of another person.
who? The strongest opponent of national table tennis ever, Grand Slam Waldner is also!
After the 2005 Shanghai World Table Tennis Championships, countless people raised a question about Lao Wa, that is, when will he retire?
As a table tennis veteran born in 1965 and once broke the wrist with Cai Zhenhua, Waldner turned 40 years old at the 2006 World Table Tennis Championships, which is already a veteran of the veterans.
In the previous year's individual World Table Tennis Championships, Waldner's performance was very average, he was eliminated in the singles round of 32, and he was swept 4-0 by Samsonov, completely without the prestige of winning Marlene and Bohr in the 2004 Olympic Games.
After all, he was a year older; and Waldner's close comrade-in-arms, world champion Person, chose to be absent.
Therefore, before the Bremen World Table Tennis Championships began, many people have begun to predict that Lao Wa will not participate in the competition. After all, for a former "strongest on the surface" table tennis player, if he can't play any good results, what is the point of staying on the field and losing endlessly?
But it wasn't long before everyone received good news, that is, Lao Wa was sure to come to Germany!
What makes Chinese fans even more excited is that the Swedish team and the Chinese team are in the same group, so everyone hopes to see Lao Wa and the national table tennis celebrities again!
However, some people scoffed at this: Waldner is in his 40s, what else can he make?
However, the next game made everyone look at the former king of table tennis!
In the men's group stage, Sweden and Denmark met together.
As a former world table tennis hegemon, although the Swedish team has been in decline for several years, it is still not a big problem to deal with such a weak brigade as Denmark. The only problem was that the Danish team, although the overall strength was average, had an athlete who reached the top level in Europe at that time.
who? In the 2005 World Table Tennis Championships, Wang Hao and Hao Shuai won two consecutive national table tennis players, and MeiZi, who finally won the men's singles bronze medal, was also!
The name Metz, I believe that old fans will not be unfamiliar. This brother's achievements are not particularly outstanding, and his skills are not so terrible, but they are familiar to countless people because of their sword moves sideways.
In the 2005 Shanghai World Table Tennis Championships, Metz relied on the rather unpopular and quite passive tactic of putting high balls to make Wang Hao and Hao Shuai dizzy, and finally reached the men's singles final four and won a bronze medal.
After the end of this battle, the Chinese table tennis team was painfully determined, began to pay more attention to the European COSCO-Taiwan holding technology, and constantly strengthened the practice of playing golf, and finally made Metz a short-lived figure. But even so, Metz was able to maintain a high level of competition in Europe and later won the men's singles title at the European Championships.
So for the Swedes, whether they can win metz has become the key to winning or losing this confrontation, the coaching staff wants to come and go, or feel that it is more secure to let Lao Wa play, so a "new and old war" in the European table tennis world officially began.
As a result, the 40-year-old Waldner cut the 24-year-old Metz 3-2 after 5 rounds of vicious battles, and this battle immediately alarmed the national table tennis up and down:
Although Metz can't compare with Marlene and Pol, he is also a good level of foreign association players in those years, and the result is defeated by Lao Wa, so the Chinese team must be defensive!
As a result, the Sino-Swiss war has not yet begun, and a series of public opinion wars have already begun.
After defeating Metz, Waldner was interviewed and quickly boasted about Haikou: "I am in good shape this time, on the plane here, I bet Karlsson that I can get a point from the Chinese team, he said it was impossible, and I thought I was very promising." In the end, we both bet on a beer. ”
However, Lao Wa's bragging is also capped, so he still left himself a certain amount of room during the conversation, saying that except for the Chinese team, there is no one in the group stage who can stop the Swedish team from advancing.
As for Lao Wa's performance, Liu Guoliang, who has served as the head coach of the national table tennis men's team, is in his eyes and in his heart, after all, the failure of the Athens Olympic Games is still vivid, so he does not forget to give preventive injections to his disciples:
"Don't believe the rumors about Lao Wa at any time, although his physical fitness is not good, his consciousness, realm, including the control of the game situation, is beyond all athletes... Always pay 100% attention to old tiles. Marlene's loss to Lao Wa at the Athens Olympics was a lesson that did not value him, and he is now almost perfect. ”
Obviously, both China and Switzerland have tacitly agreed that the old Watt will fight again with the national table tennis, and Waldner himself has given a clear answer to this:
"Wait, I'll play when I play against the Chinese team, success or failure, it's possible."
As a result, he reneged on his word.
In the Sino-Swiss battle, the Swedish team finally hid Waldner, and the result was that the Chinese team won a big victory, and it took only about 40 minutes to end the battle, completely chopping melons and cutting vegetables to crush the former world champion strong team, without giving the other side any room to fight back.
However, many Chinese fans watching the game did not seem so happy.
Without Lao Wa's Sino-Swiss War, even if we win, what does it mean?
For Waldner's absence, the Swedish head coach said that it was out of the need to preserve strength, and frankly said that Lao Wa had the initiative to ask for battle at that time, and hoped to play with Wang Liqin (his last battle in the 2004 Olympic Games was to lose to Wang Liqin, and he did not win the bronze medal). But considering that the horizontal and vertical can not win the national table tennis, so simply hide the old tile, let him seriously prepare for the later competition.
For the organizational arrangement, Waldner himself finally obeyed, and immediately gave up the idea of fighting again with the Chinese team. But even so, he still said that if he met the national table tennis in the knockout match, he would definitely play.
Unfortunately, he did not wait for this opportunity.
Soon after, the dust settled on the group stage, and Sweden dropped the chain extremely in the crucial battle, and as a result, even the Russian team did not play, and lost the last chance to advance to the final.
But it doesn't matter, this year is not on, next year there will be a single World Table Tennis Championships; the following year, there will be the Beijing Olympic Games, we are waiting for you to come back!
But Lao Wa's answer made everyone's hearts cold:
"This is really the last time, I participated in the individual World Table Tennis Championships in Shanghai last year, and now I am coming to Bremen to participate in the team competition, I think it is enough."
Of course, with that said, it is not once or twice that European veterans have been convinced of their retirement. Take Waldner's old comrade-in-arms Person, for example, who announced his retirement before 2006 and announced his retirement after 2006, but he was delayed until the 2012 London Olympics.
So the fans and friends at that time could not help but speculate: will the old tile also be like this?
Unfortunately, this time he kept his word.
And not only Waldner, but another Chinese star who has accompanied fans for many years is also coming to the end of his athlete career, and soon withdrew from the stage of international competitions.
The era to which they belonged seemed to have ended long ago.
But 2006 was the end point in the true sense.
Let us elaborate on these in the next chapter.
Original title: "Grand Slam Waldner (45): The last battle of the World Table Tennis Championships, Lao Wa regrets not playing with the national table tennis" - the series is not finished, welcome to continue to pay attention!