On December 16, the ITTF Tour Finals ended in Incheon, South Korea. In this competition, Japanese teenager Zhang Benzhihe showed great strength, and in the final, he defeated Chinese teenager Lin Gaoyuan 4:1. As we all know, Zhang Benzhi and the body flowing with Chinese blood, his parents are former Chinese table tennis players, in fact, there are more than one outstanding table tennis player in History who was naturalized by Japan, and even the Olympic champion turned into Japanese nationality, and the Olympic champion Wei Qingguang is one of them.
China's early table tennis Olympic champion Wei Qingguang was born in Nanning, Guangxi Province in 1962, entered the city amateur sports school at the age of 8, began to receive professional training at the age of 10, and entered the Guangxi Provincial Table Tennis Team, representing Guangxi in 1984 to win the national team, men's singles, mixed doubles three championships, and the following year won the national men's doubles championship, thus successfully entering the national team. In the national team, he teamed up with Chen Longcan to form a men's doubles pairing. Wei Qingguang became one of the leading figures in Chinese table tennis by winning the men's doubles title at the 39th World Table Tennis World Championships in 1987 and the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988, which was also the first table tennis Olympic champion at the Chinese Olympic Games.
The above seems that Wei Qingguang's ping-pong road is smooth sailing, in fact, his table tennis road is also incomparably bumpy, once Wei Qingguang was found to have hepatitis in the physical examination, and was removed from the Guangxi training team. After the re-examination found that it was not hepatitis, but because of the abnormal liver function that appeared due to excessive exercise, Wei Qingguang's father personally ran to the team in order for his son to return to the Guangxi team, and made a military order to the team: "You want to train him to death, then I am responsible." A military warrant gave Wei Qingguang the opportunity to continue his career, and in the end he did not live up to his father's expectations and became a world champion. The Chinese table tennis team is the most competitive and talented team, after Wei Qingguang won the two important championships of the World Championships and the Olympic Games, due to many reasons such as playing style, he gradually became a marginal figure in the national team, so in 1990, at the age of 28, Wei Qingguang chose to retire after participating in the Beijing Asian Games.
After retiring from the army, he was sent to Japan to serve as an ambassador for Sino-Japanese table tennis cultural exchanges, which was equivalent to him changing the environment to continue his table tennis career. After living in Japan for a long time, various problems have been exposed. In order to get his family's life in Japan on the right track, Wei Qingguang became a Japanese citizen in 1997 and changed his name to Weiguan Qingguang.
Harumitsu Weiguan has gained a foothold in Japan with his superb skills. From 1991 to 2006, Harumi Yoshinori Won the All Japan Men's Singles Championship four times, japan's top 12 championship five times, and the All Japan Social Singles Championship twice.
At the Asian Table Tennis Championships held in Japan in November 1998, Qingguang Weiguan, who had joined Japan, played for the Japanese team, and after seven years of meeting with the chinese national team members of that year, he had become his own opponent. It was at this tournament that Harumitsu Weiguan played an excellent competitive state, and finally successfully broke into the men's singles final, winning a long-lost silver medal for the Japanese pair. In 2000, Weiguan Qingguang represented Japan at the Sydney Olympic Games, but due to the decline in status, the strength of China's table tennis players, he did not achieve too good results.
After the Sydney Olympics, he gradually switched from a player to a coach, becoming a member of the Japanese national team and coaching the men's team, after which Wei Guan Qingguang devoted himself to the cause of cultivating Japanese table tennis reserve talents. Later, at Yamada Aomori High School, which enjoys the reputation of "the cradle of Japanese table tennis", he served as the coach of the men's team and trained a special number of outstanding Japanese table tennis players. From the Olympic champion to the Japanese nationality after retirement, to the "godfather" of Japanese table tennis, he has always faced pressure and doubts with a smile, and has been working hard to change his fate.
Now that Wei Guan Qingguang has long resigned from his position as a Japanese table tennis coach, he has embarked on the road of doing business and has done business in China, and his career can be described as prosperous. Although Wei GuanQingguang now settled in Japan, he often returned to China due to business dealings.
This former Olympic champion not only won honors for the motherland and made contributions to the cause of table tennis in the motherland, but also made significant contributions to the development of Japan's table tennis industry, and can also be regarded as an important participant in Sino-Japanese friendly exchanges.