PARIS, 21 May 2003 — As the table tennis world championships entered their second day here yesterday the sport’s superpower issued a grim warning to those aiming to spoil their party.
China walked away with a clean sweep of seven gold medals at the last two world championships in Osaka and Eindhoven, and were only prevented from a similar feat at Manchester in 1997 by Swede Jan-Ove Waldner.
Winning seven golds this time will be beyond even their capability but that’s only because for the first time the team competition is being held apart, in Qatar next year.
Three of the main bricks in the Chinese wall among the men are reigning champion Wang Liqin, Olympic gold medalist Kong Linghui, and world number two Ma Lin.
Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and Niu Jianfeng, first, second and third seeds respectively, carry their main hopes in the women’s competition.
Hua did not hesitate when asked to name the biggest obstacles between China and gold in the men’s singles.
“Boll and Samsonov,” he said, referring to number one seed Timmo Boll from Germany who stunned the Chinese by taking the World Cup from under their noses last November, and Belarus’ recently crowned European champion Vladamir Samsonov, the world No 3. Hua also suggested rule changes could also play their part in challenging China’s traditional supremacy.
Since arriving in France last week the Chinese delegation set up camp near Caen in Normandy, before moving to a hotel within a Ma Lin top spin smash of the Bercy indoor arena.
And Hua, who along with his team must undergo checks for the deadly SARS virus, reported ominously: “Everything’s gone well in France.” As the world’s top players hold their fire before taking to the tables today the two day qualifying process continued at a frenetic pace.
The complex system of unearthing the identity of those going on to take up the 64 vacant first round places against messrs Boll, Ma Lin, Samsonov and the rest of the big guns draws to a close later.
Meanwhile, the second day of the event was marred by the intrusion of an unwanted guest at the Bercy arena as politics entered the fray with the boycotting of an Israeli player by Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Hani Al-Hammadi from Yemen and Saudi player Nabeel Al-Maghahwi refused to play their scheduled men’s singles qualifiers against Israel’s Gay Elensky, leading to a strongly-worded protest to the event’s organizers from the head of the Israeli delegation. The 2003 championship’s disciplinary committee met to discuss the problem late yesterday, summoning Al-Hammadi and Al-Maghahwi to appear before them today to explain their version of events before making a ruling.
