Table Tennis in China – Kaydence He

Table tennis, also known as ping pong, is a sport where body type doesn’t really matter – as opposed to other sports like basketball and track. It is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth across a table utilizing small rackets. British army officers stationed in China first introduced table tennis to China in 1901. It became more popular since all people could play it – young and old, rich and poor.

The sport is extremely popular in China. A reported 10 million Chinese people often play competitive table tennis, and 300 million play occasionally. China has way more table tennis players than any other country.

China has embraced table tennis since Chairman Mao proclaimed it a national sport in the 1950s. There are said to be tennis tables in almost every park, and nearly every school has a team that trains frequently. The sport can be played practically anywhere, from the schoolyard to railway platforms.

The government invests in table tennis to ensure that further success follows. China starts recruiting table tennis talent at a young age and then tries to help them succeed in every possible way. Their training program is extremely intensive. Chinese players train more than six hours every day. The best players work with specialized practice partners and sometimes even play against two at a time.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics, China took gold in all four table tennis events. Since table tennis was introduced to the Olympics in 1988, the country has won 28 of 32 gold medals. In the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics, it can be expected for China to win more gold medals.

Here is a picture of China’s Zhang Jike as he returns the ball against Belarus’s Vladimir Samsonov during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 11, 2016.