Beijing Olympic Games

Table Tennis-China exports rule in distant lands

By Simon Rabinovitch

BEIJING, Aug 10 (Reuters) – China may be restricted to six players on its table tennis team, but the home crowd has an endless number of Chinese paddlers to cheer at the Olympics.

Such is the country’s embarrassment of riches in its national sport that at least 17 other countries, from Congo to Luxembourg, boast China-born players at the Beijing Games.

“All these players who’ve gone abroad, it’s a loss of talent for the team. But it’s also a source of pride for Chinese people,” said Fang Ming, a woman wearing a red ‘China must win’ headband at the first match of the Olympics on Wednesday.

Many promising players have been lured abroad to bolster countries without a ping-pong hope. Others have left China after failing to break into the top tier at home.

Several table tennis families that cut across national boundaries underscore the potential for conflicted loyalties.

Austria’s top female player, Liu Jia, is the daughter of Liu Xiaodong, a coach with the Chinese men’s team.

Singapore coach Liu Guodong is the elder brother of the Chinese men’s head coach, Liu Guoliang. Singapore’s Liu oversees a team composed entirely of mainland exports.

“We’re representing Singapore and, even though we’re Chinese, when we play we give it our all,” he said. “Anyhow, we’re just not capable of posing a threat against China.”

That may be the case for the men, but the Singaporean women, led by Li Jia Wei who was born and trained in Beijing, are serious contenders for a medal in the team event.

Concerned that countries were relying too much on imports and not developing their own talent, the International Table Tennis Federation passed a new rule this year banning players from switching national allegiance after the age of 21.

“This is just going to be help us to make the next generation stronger, to build up a very solid system domestically,” Marles Martins, coach of the Canadian team, said.

Some countries have done well in table tennis with their native children. South Korea’s Ryu Seung-min took gold at Athens four years ago.

The biggest threats to China at these games come from Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus and Germany’s Timo Boll, not from transplanted Chinese players.

Some fans in China prefer it that way.

“If there’s a Chinese playing for another country, I support them. But I’d rather watch foreigners play. They’re quite good looking,” said Lin Yuan, a female college student in Beijing. (Additional reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Alex Richardson)