The same age as Liu Guoliang, Samsonov, 45, gave up his seventh Olympic trip

On July 6, the International Table Tennis Federation announced that the 45-year-old Belarusian star Vladimir · Samsonov has confirmed his withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Samsonov is a table tennis player who is very familiar to Chinese fans. Born in 1976, he is the same age as Liu Guoliang and has repeatedly defeated the world champions of national table tennis including Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui, Wang Liqin, Ma Lin, Wang Hao, Chen Xuan, Ma Long, Xu Xin and other national table tennis champions in international competitions.

Samsonov made his debut at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and has represented Belarus at every Olympic Games since that year. Five years ago in Rio, Lao Sa successfully advanced to the men's singles semifinals, but unfortunately lost to Japan's Mizutani Hayabusa in the bronze medal battle, and rubbed shoulders with the medal.

As the "evergreen" of international table tennis, this year Samsonov was supposed to usher in his seventh Olympic trip. Lao Sa retired from the Olympic singles qualifiers in March this year due to injury, and failed to qualify for the first time, but was shortlisted for the Tokyo Olympic Games in early June with a high ranking, when he said that he had always wanted to win an Olympic medal, and the motivation brought by this goal would push him to continue to struggle.

This withdrawal also means that he has no chance to equal the record of seven Olympic participations held by Person, Primoratc, Sever and Saigon for the time being. At present, the ITTF has not officially announced the reason for Samsonov's withdrawal.