The Olympic simulation tournament ended in Xinxiang, Ma Long Xu Xin Liu Shiwen three veterans have handed in their “report card”. Ma Long’s athletic status is well maintained, the level of commitment and technical and tactical level of the game is still the best. As long as there are no major injuries, the Dragon team should be a sure thing for the Tokyo Olympics.
Xu Xin lost in the singles to Lin Shidong, a junior in the second team of the country, and Liu Shiwen stopped in the top 8, swept by Zhu Yuling 0:4; the two Olympic entries in the mixed doubles also stopped in the top 8, and lost to Zhou Yu Chen Xingtong in the first round of the knockout round… …
If it is said that Liu Shiwen is back from injury and has not yet recovered to her peak condition, it is understandable, but Xu Xin’s nakedly visible state of a slump and cold hands are also a headache for the coaching staff.
Through the performance of the Olympic simulation, we return to the main topic of the article: these veteran players of Pingguo are still okay to play in the Olympic Games? Ma Long is definitely OK, I believe most fans should approve this answer, because no matter from which aspect to consider, the Dragon team is the best choice. Xu Xin is participating in both mixed doubles and team events. As long as Xu Xin’s form picks up, I don’t think it will be a big problem. I believe the coaching staff and Xu Xin have a way to solve the problems that were exposed in this Olympic simulation, and there are still more than 2 months to adjust.
In fact, the question that we are most concerned about, the most nagging question is: can Liu Shiwen still play in the Olympic women’s singles and impact their dream of “Grand Slam”? Can she play in mixed doubles, teams, and singles? To put it more bluntly, who should be the second choice for the women’s singles in Tokyo Olympics, Liu Shiwen or Sun Yingsha (the first choice is basically confirmed to be Chen Meng)?
Let’s take a look at the official statement: “According to the provisions of the Olympic selection method, the final athletes to participate in the Tokyo Olympics will be selected from the main athletes with outstanding performance in the competition, excellent external record, psychological quality and resistance to stress to participate in the Tokyo Olympics; concerning the world ranking and not only the principle of the world ranking, combined with the athletes in the last two years to participate in a series of international Domestic and international competition results, to determine the scope of the main athletes to participate in the Olympic Games; comprehensive consideration of the athletes’ competitive strength, physical condition, injury rehabilitation, and other circumstances, as well as for the country’s glory, the overall situation for the ideological consciousness, reasonable arrangements for athletes to participate in the project.”
After reading this big paragraph of official words, I believe many ballplayers have been confused. I will try to analyze from the selection practices, competition results, world rankings, competitive status, major opponents, physical energy these dimensions to you.
Selection Practices
If you have been watching for a long time or are interested in the history of table tennis, you should know that the selection of Olympic singles candidates for our country is a convention to follow, and the most straightforward expression of this convention is: choose the two people with the highest probability of winning the championship. The national honor is greater than personal honor, individual obey the collective arrangement, this is the biggest selection practice of the Olympic singles candidates of the national ping.
It is because of this practice as a premise, Liu Shiwen, and Sun Yingsha’s Olympic women’s singles selection competition is fair, is comparable.
The results of the competition
Competition results are extremely important considerations in the selection of Olympic women’s singles candidates, and Liu Shiwen has a greater advantage in this dimension. Liu Shiwen is the winner of the latest World Cup, as well as the 2019 Women’s World Cup, achieving the unprecedented “five champions” of the World Cup. Sun Yingsha’s singles performance is much inferior in comparison, with her best record being the runner-up in last year’s World Cup.
Many fans do not understand the significance of the results of the tournament, knowing that the test of the tournament for players is all-round, especially the test of the psychological level and the accumulation of experience in the tournament, which can not be replaced by more small games. That’s why the World Series championship, which is the most difficult to win, is the priority in selecting Olympic singles candidates by default because the four-year Olympics is a matter of national honor and can never be lost.
World ranking
At present, Sun Yingsha is ranked third in the world and Liu Shiwen is ranked seventh in the world, and according to the ranking rules of the Olympic Games, Sun Yingsha is ranked second seed, so she can share the upper and lower half with Chen Meng to avoid an early “civil war”. If Liu Shiwen participates in the singles event, there is a 50-50 chance that she will meet Chen Meng in advance. Therefore, in this dimension, Sun Yingsha has a big advantage. But the official statement “the principle of referring to the world ranking and not only the world ranking” obviously leaves a lot of room for maneuvering.
Competitive Status
Although the results of the mock competition do not affect the list of participants for the Olympic Games, it is obvious that one of the objectives of the coaching team is to examine the athletic status of the main players through the competition. From the results today (May 6), the mixed doubles team of Sun Yingsha and Liang Jing Kun reached the final 4, and the singles team met with Chen Meng in the final, so Sun Yingsha’s competitive status is obviously better than Liu Shiwen, who has been out of action for a long time due to injury.
Main opponents
The main opponent of the women’s game is Ito Mimei, who has the advantage of the home court, and the official “excellent external record” is a straightforward explanation of her record against Ito Mimei. In the last two years, in my impression, except for the Swedish Open, Sun Yingsha has beaten Ito in both large and small international tournaments. Liu Shiwen, on the other hand, has repeatedly withdrawn from tournaments due to injuries in the past two years, and her personal record against Ito is 2 losses in all her matches. Although the time of the encounter has been too long ago to have a high reference value, a loss is a loss. Therefore, in this dimension, it is still Sun Yingsha who leads.
Physical energy
This year Liu Shiwen (birthday born in April 1991) is 30 years old and Sun Yingsha (born in November 2020) is 20 years old, plus Liu Shiwen’s injury situation, in this dimension of physical energy, it can be said that the most unquestionable comparison, Sun Yingsha won. From the point of view of this simulation, for Liu Shiwen, who is coming back from an injury, being both mixed doubles and singles feels already a bit overwhelming. If the problem of physical energy cannot be solved properly in the last two months or so, it is almost an “impossible task” to be able to play in three events in Tokyo Olympics.
Then there are some difficult to quantify factors to consider, such as the desire to win, psychological quality, stress resistance of Olympic champions, etc., there is not too much analysis. These “software” aspects are not bad if you can become a world top player.
It is also necessary to say that the significance of using veterans in the past Olympic Games is: good guarding. “It is difficult to fight a mountain, it is even more difficult to guard a mountain”. Every Olympic Games is the time when foreign association athletes launch the fiercest impact on the national ping. The “old with the new” has been proven to be an effective “gold” model in recent Olympics, as reflected by the fact that veterans are more capable of finding a way out of difficult conditions and can hold their own half of the field well, and The “newcomers” will be the finalists.
Although there have been attempts to analyze the approach to the selection of Olympic candidates from several dimensions, there is no way to know the specific weighting of each consideration in the minds of the coaching staff. However, I believe that the “70 years of ping pong” team will select the most suitable candidates and arrange the most secure part-time program; and the selected athletes will also consider the big picture and compete in the best condition to ensure that the five gold medals for table tennis in the Tokyo Olympics will not fall by the wayside.
The final Olympic candidate of the national ping will be announced soon, and let’s wait and see, see “Lian Po is old, still able to eat or not?”