The Olympics are Coming : The U.S. Table Tennis Experience: A Case Study in the Loss of Zhang, Wang and Sung

Since the introduction of table tennis at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, the sport has been dominated by China. Out of 37 opportunities for a gold medal, Chinese athletes have won 32.

Only 11 other countries have ever won a medal. Professional league and full-time training groups abound in Asia or Europe.

By contrast, the U.S. professional league, Major League Table Tennis, began only last year. Table tennis players in the U.S. must train and travel on their own to tournaments overseas, which are crucial to gain experience in high-level international competition.

“It’s tough. It takes away from you focusing on the table and your skills and what you need to do to improve,” Zhang said. That medal is not so far-fetched now if we had that team with us.

The lack of a strong culture around professional table tennis has a noticeable side effect, they say: the unearned confidence of normal people who believe — mistakenly — that they can compete up with the likes of Zhang, Wang and Sung.

It happens often enough that they’ve grown numb to the insult, they said. Wang said sometimes she relents and agrees to a match with her opponent. “Usually it’s sad for them,” she said. “The reality hits, and they know that table tennis is hard.”

“My first goal was to beat my parents, then my sister, and then it developed from there,” Zhang recalled. Each can recall when they first beat their most challenging family opponent: eight years old for Wang, 10 years old for Zhang. Sung, whose twin sister was also a competitive player, “took a long time” to reach that milestone. She laughed and said it was not quick.

They had modest goals in Paris. The best Olympics result forZhang was the round of 16 in the singles event. Wang and Sung are both newcomers who hope to return to the Olympics; this summer was about gaining experience.

The loss stung a lot. Yet it represented the U.S. women’s team’s most competitive showing since 2008 — in the previous three Olympic appearances, the team had exited after a 3-0 loss.

“I have noticed a lot more people actually paying attention to our sport this time around in the Olympics,” said Sung. “A lot of my friends have texted being like, ‘Oh, my God. All my other friends know about it, and they want to watch it. I think that it is the step that we need in the media.

The table tennis players gave back the favor. The women showed up to the Team USA practice looking excited to get to meet the gold medal winning team.

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The guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves is not, though, being named to that list. Yet he voiced his confidence that, should they play, he would not be shut out. He asked, “Eleven to zero?” I don’t think it is true. I’m scoring at least once.”

Three women, two of which are new to table tennis, are professional athletes who have played for years at the highest levels of the sport.

Hundreds of athletes from the US gathered together in their blazers at the opening ceremony. The video opens as basketball player Steph Curry has brought a group of women to meet his Team USA basketball teammate Anthony Edwards.

PARIS — It was the kind of encounter that can only happen at the Olympics: An NBA star and the U.S. women’s table tennis team, engaging in some friendly trash talk.

The only person who might end up with the biggest Olympics fan title would be the one who wears a Badge of Honor. The french soccer player was not allowed to play the Olympics because of his commitments with the club.

If you want to know where the action is happening at any given time, you’d do well to follow his X (formerly Twitter) feed, where he issues “Alertes Medailles” when hardware is won for France. He was described as a voluntary one-man wire service by the New York Times.

There are five days left in the competition. Like Where’s Waldo? of the Paris Games, you wonder where Team USA’s favorite mascot will show up next.

He’s everywhere — saddling up next to Martha Stewart at the equestrian events in Versailles, Snooping around street skateboarding and fencing, being blown away by Simone Biles’ talent.

Anthony Edwards and the Women’s Basketball Team in Los Alamos, New York: After a Game of Table Tennis, the NBA Players flocked to the Paris Games

Steph Curry, who knows his teammate has a habit of boasting his multi-sport athleticism, riled Edwards up, telling him that the team would shut him out in a game of table tennis 21-0. The superhero thinks he can get at least one point against them.

Anthony Edwards, a charismatic member of Team USA’s basketball squad, went to a table tennis match to support the women’s team last week, enthusiastically cheering on U.S. star Lily Zhang.

The women’s team of the 3-on-3 basketball team was in a hole and the superstars of 5-on-5 basketball came to their aid. On the next day, James, and then on the next day, Durant. When he went, King James was blessed with a win from the squad, who turned their game around to eventually clinch a bronze medal this week.

The support from the NBA superstarsmeans a lot to a third of the women’s roster. “They talk to us, they care about how our team is doing, how we’re doing,” she said. We love to watch them play. It’s great to see that reciprocated.

The Paris Games is a big deal for Olympians, because they have made it a priority to show up despite their busy schedules.