The 40-year-old Tim Bohr failed to perform miracles at the Tokyo Olympics, singles was eliminated early, and the only thing waiting for him is the next table tennis team competition.
But even so, he has become a legend – in Tokyo, whether it is the coach Marlene sitting on the sidelines, or the champion Ma Long, or the runner-up Fan Zhendong, he has played against him. Pol also has a huge regret, at the time of his debut, Liu Guoliang has retired, the two sides did not meet in the big game, only in a friendly match twice, but With Liu Guoliang's contemporary Kong Linghui, and Pol also clashed several times.
Clicking on Pol's official website, Pol, whose eyes were shining brightly, held out his right index finger and pointed it off the screen. This is actually the official website that Bohr established to promote his table tennis coaching service, in addition to the English slogan "We coach you to win" on the top, there is only one non-German copywriting on the site - "Coach Bohr", which uses Chinese.
Pol, 40, is still present at the Olympics
Pol, the "super long standby" Chinese men's table tennis opponent and old friend, has long been like the gymnast Qiu Suoweikina who participated in the Olympic Games for the eighth time, and has become a spiritual totem in this Olympic arena.
Like Waldner, who has been waving until the age of 51 and Samsonov (45), who announced his retirement shortly before the opening of the Olympic Games, Ball, with his tenacious and self-disciplined professionalism and humble and friendly empty cup mentality, has drawn nourishment from the course of more than 20 years of confrontation with national table tennis, and at the same time achieved the greatness of the "Dream Team".
From the time of Liu and Kong, it began to emerge
In 2005, Hunan Satellite TV once held a "National Ball Ceremony Masters Tournament" at the Changsha Helong Gymnasium, led by Liu Guoliang, who was already the manager of men's table tennis at the time, to fight against the World Star United team composed of Bol, Samsonov, Wu Shangyan, Glinka and Schrage. At that time, Liu Guoliang had only been in office for 2 years, and he had not yet become a "fat man who didn't understand the ball", but he suddenly "hit" Pol among these 5 people.
Liu Guoliang said at that time: "The most terrible thing is not his (Pol's) technology, but his age." He's very young, so he has a lot of potential; in the next two years, by the 2008 Olympics, it may be more than that level as it is now. ”
Ball has played Kong Linghui and Wang Hao in doubles matches
The ring game, as the name suggests, is that whoever loses on both sides will make up for it, and the winner will continue to stay. As a result, Wang Liqin, who had just won the men's singles competition at the World Table Tennis Championships, played 5 3-0 in the order of 5 people introduced above, so that the other boys of the Chinese team did not get the opportunity to play. But Liu Guoliang's worries are not unfounded, because at the World Cup not long ago, Pol had just won the championship with three top players, Wang Liqin, Ma Lin and Wang Hao.
In addition, in 2002, at the home of the Chinese team in Jinan, the 21-year-old Ball knocked kong Linghui, who had already declined, 4-1 in the final, and even sat on the world number one throne the following year. These experiences are still fresh in Pol's memory nearly 20 years later. In an interview last year, asked about the most memorable match of his career, Bohr highlighted the experience of those two World Cups: "It was also a surprise for me to be able to beat three top Chinese players in a row in the big competition. This is not something that happens very often. ”
Kong Linghui may not know that it was an earlier experience that influenced Pol and put the seeds of victory in his heart. It was the 1995 Tianjin World Championships, only 15-year-old Bohr was in front of the TV watching Kong Linghui, who was not yet 20 years old, and in the men's singles 1/8 final, he defeated the Frenchman Gaiting, who was indispensable in Europe at the time, and could not help but sigh: "There is Chinese can beat the horizontal board out of this realm!" ”
But what Kong Linghui really touched Pol was a game in 2000 that even Pol himself could not remember the specific time and place. According to his recollection, Kong Linghui, who only had training arrangements that day, came to the gymnasium very early, and when he walked out of the gymnasium after practicing, he accidentally knocked over a multilingual sign on the side of the road. At this time, a female volunteer came forward to help the sign up, but Kong Linghui insisted on coming by himself and nodded and smiled at the female volunteer.
This is probably the moment when Pol really transformed into Kong Linghui's fan brother. In the face of this Chinese big brother who is exactly a generation older than himself (5 years old), Pol looked at Kong Linghui at the age of 30 and was still fighting, and set a simple little goal: "When I myself was 30 years old, I don't know if I would still have the endurance and persistence like Kong Linghui?" ”
As a result, he not only survived the 30-year-old hurdle, but also extended the front line for another 10 years. He lamented that the "incredible things" of Kong Linghui's generation of Chinese players were all reproduced on himself.
Pol shook hands with Marlene
As for Liu Guoliang, Bohr was already at the end of his career when he debuted in the international table tennis world, and more often he was playing against Bol as a male table tennis coach. Looking at Liu Guoliang's judgment of the main opponents at the beginning of this century, when the European tigers were lined up, it was indeed exactly the same. In a 2002 issue of "Table Tennis World", Liu Dao, who was not yet a coach, could still be found saying this sentence: "If the Chinese players can't stop the momentum of Bol's rise, he will become the second old tile!" ”
Although he did not have almost no experience in playing against Liu Guoliang, Pol still observed through systematic video recordings, and in the analysis of the previous sentence: "His serve is very good, especially when he can still cover the serve." ”
As we all know, Liu Guoliang in the late career is precisely because of the frequent rules of the International Table Tennis Federation such as unobstructed serves, small balls for large balls, etc., which affected the gradual transformation of the state after the curtain. But in Bol's more than 20-plus career, he has experienced only a few more changes in the rules. Being able to adapt quickly and flexibly is also the magic weapon of "longevity".
However, Pol finally fulfilled his dream of making a move with Liu Guoliang. In the "World Champion Table Tennis Straight Battle" held in the 2013 Table Tennis Super League, Liu Guoliang, as the coach of the straight board team, held up his belly to play and Pol twice during the break between The Game of Marlene and Ball. Although the informal competition is not bound by the "unobstructed serve", after all, it is neglected to exercise, Liu Guoliang's two serves "sneak attack" Pol can not succeed, in its happy and harmonious atmosphere lost.
Transnational "Marco Polo" combination
Ball paired with Malone in doubles
The confrontation between Pol and liu and Kong after several generations of Chinese table tennis players has also won and lost each other, and has also been the bitter lord of each other. Wang Liqin and Ma Lin, who are similar to him, also feel sorry for him in the confrontation in the first 10 years of this century. At the 2001 Osaka World Table Tennis Championships, Bohr lost a point to the Chinese team because he won the Sino-German battle in the quarter-finals, allowing the then coach Cai Zhenhua to hide Wang Liqin for the rest of the competition.
But Pol had a lot of praise for his opponent, who was three years older than himself, and even revealed in an interview that the table tennis player he admired most in his youth was his compatriot roosevelt, and now it is Wang Liqin, because "he is like a machine."
Slowly, like Kong Linghui, who lamented that he was "still full of vitality at the age of 30", he reached an age when his competitive status declined. However, as the opponents of the Chinese team became Ma Long, Xu Xin, and Zhang Jike, who were born around 1990, the "three Zhangs" of Pol, although more and more inferior in the overall history of the battle, always made Liu Guoliang's disciples nervous.
Zhang Jike, who began to "gram" Pol from the semi-final of the 2011 Rotterdam World Championships, was stolen by Pol in the semi-finals of the men's team at the 2012 London Olympic Games, and turned his head to go to the bathroom to calm down. After adjusting his state, he came back to fight with Wang Hao and won the combination of Pol and Steger.
Both are well-known left-handed players, both with zlc ping-pong bottom plates named after themselves. Zhang Jike also admitted that because the opponent is Pol, he wants to win too much.
Xu Xin, who has a slightly inferior personal honor among several people, has a crushing victory against Pol's overall record. Ball scored his only point in the 2011 Chinese men's table tennis 4-1 win over World League, and Xu Xin has been his bitter master ever since. However, Xu Xin still sighed: "When I reached Pol's age, I definitely couldn't beat him." ”
As for Fan Zhendong, the representative of the younger generation, it is not difficult to guess the historical confrontation between the two from the way Pol is helpless against the results of this draw.
But Bol, who is over 30 years old and can't compete with young people by his physical function alone, has the right idea - with the strongest opponent, what better learning opportunity than this?
Thus, there was the "Marco Polo" combination that was later rumored to be a good story. Ball and Malone, a 7-year-old duo, have come together in an era when everyone loves cp as the International Table Tennis Federation begins to allow cross-association players to be paired since the 2015 Suzhou World Table Tennis Championships.
In fact, before this, the two have been "eyebrow flirting" for many years, and they have been paired on some non-competition occasions. As for not worrying about the official matching will be stolen by Pol what is the core secret of the national table tennis, Malone is open-minded: "Everyone is so familiar with each other, without cooperating with the doubles, they already know the advantages and disadvantages very well." ”
But helplessly, this pair of "immortal combination" competition signing luck is really not flattering. He lost to Xu Xin/Zhang Jike in the quarterfinals of the 2015 Suzhou World Table Tennis Championships and to Xu Xin/Fan Zhendong in the semifinals of the 2017 World Table Tennis Championships in Düsseldorf. In Budapest in 2019, Malone finally touched the men's doubles gold medal, but at that time, the partner had become Wang Chuqin. On the other hand, Pol/Francesca are about to advance to the quarterfinals, but Pol withdrew from the tournament with a fever before the game...
Although the previous and subsequent partners have not been in a few years, Bohr can still get the true biography of Ma Long from the age of thirty-four or five, and he can continue to absorb the "Chinese wisdom" of table tennis at the age of declining physical function, which is already the treatment that Waldner and Samsonov have never enjoyed. Coupled with the fact that Malone's English was getting better and better in those years—Pol himself joked about it, and the two communicated more and more fluently—Pol happily felt that this was something that benefited both of them.
The cover story of the fifth issue of "Ping Pong World" in 2015 is the best summary of this fate: "Marlon Ball: Ten Years of Pity for Each Other".
Bol is very popular with fans
What Pol has taught us
In many ways, Pol, like many of the top German project players of his contemporaries, is strict and self-disciplined, loyal to the team; and the undisputed "Big Mac" opponents for their projects, on the one hand, are in awe and draw like sponges; on the other hand, they are not humble, and they challenge them again and again in persistent patience.
Many of these are common to German sports people, but I believe that many are unique to Pol. He cherished his family, and at the age of 21, he entered the palace of marriage with his girlfriend who had been in contact with him for many years, and at the age of 32, because of the birth of a new life, he added the identity of "daughter slave". He has intermittently played for guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other teams in the table tennis super, and even European television stations have come to negotiate the purchase of broadcast rights in the table tennis super when his popularity is at its peak. Those experiences, no doubt like his subsequent pairing with Malone, were precious moments for him to "thirst for knowledge" in the Ping Pong Kingdom.
He published a book in 2011 called "Mein China: Eine Reise ins Wunderland des Tischtennis" (Mein China: An Adventure in the Kingdom of Table Tennis). "I wanted to describe the China I knew from my point of view, not to force every reader to agree with me, but I did know a lot about the country, so I wrote it," he said. ”
He also said that the one who most hopes that Chinese table tennis fans will understand their own side is "pet fans".
Even back in Europe, in the past 2 years when the epidemic has been raging and the impact is undecided, Pol, who is already an "elderly player", still does not relax his requirements for himself, and scores as many goals as possible with the permission of the national health department.
He has renewed his contract with the FC Düsseldorf until 2022 and is still curious and enthusiastic about what happens after the age of 40 – because in addition to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, there is also the Houston World Table Tennis Championships at the end of the year. He was excited because it was the first time in the nearly century-long history of the event that he had come to the United States, to places other than Asia and Europe.
20 years or even longer, from the fledgling to the old Ji Futuo Pol, let the Chinese people blur the boundaries between opponents and friends in our hearts, and also left him a low-key and gorgeous chapter in the history of table tennis.