August 18, 2016

Olympic Coverage
Guess who swept the Olympics once again? But Japan did give the Chinese men a scare. Here’s what happened.

Match #1: Ma Long (CHN) d. Niwa Koki (JPN), 6,9,6. Okay, Niwa made game two interesting, but this match between the world #1 and #22 was never in doubt.

Match #2: Jun Mizutani (JPN) d. Xu Xin (CHN), 10,9,-3,-7,10. Holy moly! Jun went up 2-0. He’s world #6 to Xu’s #3, and Japan’s hopes really rest in him winning both singles matches and somehow scrounging up one other match. But Xu comes back, easily wins games three and four. What the scores don’t show here is that Xu was up 10-7 match point! It was all but over – and then Jun scored five in a row. Poor Xu is going to have lots of explainin’ to do the next time they choose their team. Hello Fan Zhendong (who’s already world #2 after Ma Long).

Match #3: Zhang Jike/Xu Xin (CHN) d. Yoshimura Maharu/Niwa Koki (JPN), -4,6,9,5. When Japan won the first 11-4, things looked REALLY interesting. Xu had just lost in singles, and now, despite being China’s lefty doubles specialist, he was losing in doubles as well, and badly. China won game #2, but game #3 could have gone either way. China pulls it out. If not, this would have forced a game five decider between Jun and Zhang Jike – and that would have been something to watch. But it was not to be because playing for China in the next match was the guy that makes Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt seem like just slightly good athletes…

Match #4: Ma Long (CHN) d. Maharu Yoshimura (JPN), 1,4,4. Do you think Phelps or Bolt can beat their competition that badly? Yoshimura, world #21, is a sacrificial lamb here. His primary purpose here was to try to win the doubles (and he gave it a good go, along with Koki), so that Japan can force that fifth match between Jun and Zhang Jike that we all would have liked to see.

At Least 44 Table Tennis Players in Rio Are Chinese-Born. Six Play for China.
Here’s the article from the New York Times. (It may require you to get a 99-cent subscription for four weeks – but if you hit the “stop loading” button right as it loads, it freezes on the screen without requiring the subscription. I tested this and it worked over and over, so I was able to read the article.)

This has been an ongoing debate for generations. The article includes a chart that shows how many Chinese-born table tennis players (44 of the 172 at the Olympics) play for which countries. Table tennis by far had the highest percentage of Olympians born in another country at 31%. Second was basketball, far behind at 15%. (Even an Asian dominated sport like Judo was at only 11%.) The problem is that many regional players in China can emigrate to another country, get citizenship, and then become a member of their National or Olympic team, thereby displacing a player born in that country who didn’t have the advantage of developing in a huge table tennis country like China. There’s a good argument for either side – these Chinese players do improve the level of play wherever they go and force competing players to raise their level, but it also discourages some from continuing to train since their spots are just taken up by Chinese immigrants. (For example, throughout much of the late 1990s/early 2000s, probably over half the U.S. men’s and women’s teams were foreign-born.)

Javier Soto's Olympic Sport Quest Leads Him to Valley Table Tennis Club
Here’s the article and video (4:20).

Cam Around Town: Table Tennis at Ohio State
Here’s the video (1:35).

Mike Mezyan Table Tennis Artworks: “Adoria”
Here’s the new table tennis artwork. (Here’s the non-Facebook version.)

Hospital Pong?
Here’s the video (41 sec) as a “doctor” takes on a comatose patient!

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