If you tell you today that someone can fight against national table tennis for decades without falling behind, you will definitely scoff at it.
But at a time when the dominance of national table tennis is still strong and uncaptured, this is a harsh reality. And to achieve this feat was the old tile known as the "Emperor of Table Tennis", Waldner.
Jan Nova Waldner is a Swedish table tennis player born on 3 October 1965 in the first Grand Slam of table tennis to combine Olympic, World Table Tennis, World Cup and European Championships. He is very popular in Sweden and China, affectionately known as "Lao Wa" by Chinese audiences, and has competed with generations of Chinese players. Because of the extremely artistic and varied nature of playing, it is also known as "Ping-Pong Mozart", "Table Tennis Evergreen" and "Guerrilla Captain".
Lao Wa holds the racket horizontally in his right hand, the fast attack combines the arc play, and the attack is changeable and good at using the brain. Since its debut in Europe at the age of 16, it has been the peak of the world.
The peak of his personal level was at the 33-year-old World Table Tennis Championships in Manchester, starting from the knockout round, a round was not lost in 7 3:0 direct championships, and nittaku also specially produced a Manchester commemorative edition.
The performance of table tennis may not be as good as that of Malone, the god of table tennis, but when it comes to contribution, it is not comparable, because the straight-grip serve method of the horizontal board is its invention, which is also the most commonly used serve method by most horizontal board players so far.
In the past table tennis that everyone should know, the Orientals relied on delicacy and the Westerners relied on strength. And Lao Wa absorbed the stalemate ability of European players in that era and the first three board techniques of Asian players, and achieved integration, how can it not reach the peak?
However, Lao Wa's good grades are good, and he cannot be regarded as particularly strong in his dominance. There are also times when people are upset, of course, winning is also deserved, but whoever wins is still ecstatic, after all, Lao Wa belongs to the top of the top. Liu Guoliang once said in an interview that when he was an athlete, the country was very happy to win two international competitions.
Ranked first in the world for 823 consecutive days, ranked first in the world for 534 consecutive days; never fell out of the top 10 in the world in 17 years;
Regarding the results, Lao Wa is not earth-shattering, but the following three crowns are enough to make him into the top hall of fame in table tennis:
1989 40th World Table Tennis Championships Men's Singles Champion;
1990 FIFA World Cup Men's Singles Champion
1992 25th Olympic Men's Singles Champion;
These three gold medals made Lao Wa the first Grand Slam in the history of table tennis. At least in terms of speed, it surpassed China and achieved the first place.
Moreover, not only is the strength not cheap, but the peak period of the old tile is also very long. We now look at the 33-year-old Malone still fighting, we already feel strange, but Lao Wa only retired in 2016, when he was already 51 years old, the age of knowing the destiny. It should be known that Wang Yifu, the elder of the 6th Dynasty of the Olympic Games, won the second Olympic gold medal, which is only 40.
And our god man Lao Wa has indeed dominated the table tennis world for many years.
Cai Zhenhua, the opponent who debuted at the time of his debut, has been examined as the deputy director of the General Administration of Sports in 2004, and Lao Wa's mid-career opponent, Liu Guoliang, was already the head coach of the Chinese men's team at that time, and everyone can think about how many generations of players Lao Wa single-handedly blew up the Chinese team...
In the 2004 Athens Olympics, Lao Wa eliminated Marlene to reach the semifinals, but lost to the imposing champion Liu Chengmin, and then lost to Wang Liqin in the bronze medal battle.
2004 Athens Olympics Table Tennis Men's Singles Bronze Medal Battle Known for his change in serve, Waldner ended his life's Olympic journey with a single serve error
After the game, the 39-year-old old Wa came back to the table and threw the ball up again and dropped it, leaving us with a very lonely back.