Tournaments

21 Mar 2017

Ever wondered what the numbers 1988, 24 and 3 have in common? The answer is that they are just some of the key numbers associated with Olympic Table Tennis history.

by Simon Daish

Facts

For those of you Table Tennis fans who like your facts, here are some important numbers from previous Olympic Games to think about:

2012 – China won all four available gold medals at the London 2012 Olympic Games. It also won all four gold medals in 1996, 2000 and 2008.

1988 – Table tennis made its debut at Seoul 1988 and has been present ever since.

24 – China has won 24 out of a possible 28 gold medals in table tennis. Republic of Korea (3) and Sweden (1) have claimed the other four.

19 – Deng Yaping (China) is the youngest gold medallist in a singles event. She won women’s singles at Barcelona 1992 at the age of 19 years and 182 days.

7 – Jorgen Persson (Sweden), Jean-Michel Saive (Belgium) and Zoran Primorac (Croatia) competed at all seven Olympic table tennis tournaments between 1988 and 2012.

4 – Three players have won a record four gold medals in table tennis: Deng, Wang Nan (China), and Zhang Yining (China).

3 – Wang Hao (China) lost the men’s singles final at the Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games. He has now retired from international competition.

2 – Chen Jing (Taipei, silver at Atlanta 1996) and Kim Hyang Mi (Korea DPR, silver at Athens 2004) are the only two non-Chinese athletes to have reached the women’s singles final.

1 – The number of gold medals won by non-Asian NOCs in table tennis. Jan-Ove Waldner (Sweden) won men’s singles in 1992.

0 – No athlete has managed to win the men’s singles more than once.

Statistics provided by Gracenote Sports.

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