There already is a fierce competition between China and rest of the participating countries in the medal tally. The Chinese have it their way in almost every sport; at every field, arena and pool. From dominating the net sports, water sports, racket sports and so on. Amongst all they are conquering, table tennis is one sport that they have taken over from one side of the table to the other. They are unbeatable.
Table Tennis: When a gold medal is not enough
Their win is starting to get habitual and an important question arises. Can the Chinese players and the officials take any less after this? Will they be able to? In Beijing Olympics, the Chinese won two golds in table tennis but this time round all the four gold medals went to China. This marvelous leap into sweeping off all the medals brings both good and bad news.
The coach from the Chinese side thinks that the sport does not have as much competition at the moment and needs to get more rigorous. He himself was a player in 1996 who has won double golds. Of course every side that wins will have the same thing to say. The players must be happy that they are more polished than the other teams while the coach deems that real sense of achievement comes with great competition.
But there is a catch to this. When countries allow only their nationals to practice and train in a certain sport, of course they become the masters of it. There is pressure on the Chinese authorities to open their state-run schools to the non-Chinese as well. If they cannot participate, how will they ever compete?
The president of the International Table Tennis Federation, Adham Sharara says: “It`s like the US with basketball or Canada with ice hockey. If you keep it only for yourself, you win everything and nobody else can win, then everybody else loses interest”.
It is either gold or nothing for the Chinese. While other athletes are happy to getting any medal or even making it to the finals of their sport, the Chinese have to have the gold. They just have to.
The coach thinks the competition may increase in the next Olympics. Actually he is wishing it does.
Tags: China, Medal Tally, Olympics, Sport, Sports, Table Tennis
