Article: 4 of The Worlds Top 6 Players Not Competing In Singles Event At The 2016 Olympic Games!

[TableTennisDaily]

Article: 4 of the worlds top 6 players not competing in singles events at the 2016 Ol

You can view the page at http://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/forum/content.php?1054-4-of-the-worlds-top-6-players-not-competing-in-singles-events-at-the-2016-Olympic-Games!

 

[Baal]

I believe the WTTC already means more than the Olympics or the World Cup for the reasons you mentioned: None of the best players are excluded from the WTTC.

Table tennis is an individual sport. If you are #3 in the world you should be allowed to play, even if #1 and #2 are from the same country. If she was allowed in, Liu Shiwen (for example) would have a greater chance of winning a gold medal than ANY player not from China. How is this fair?

By the way I am not Chinese, I come from the US, a country that will never win a medal in table tennis. So I am pretty unbiased about this. I just want to watch great matches between the best players.

ITTF continues to make one stupid mistake after another in an attempt to legislate away Chinese dominance. This probably underlies a lot of changes they made regarding balls and now their experimentation with net height. They fail to realize that every change in rules probably favors the country with the largest infrastructure in the sport. More coaches, more kids plahing more analysis, more likely to find the perfect player to work in any set of rules you could imagine.

 

[JeffM]

Ittf should focus on promoting the sport table tennis as it is now, rather than continuously making changes (ball changes, and now experimeting with net height) to the sport to 'appeal to more people' (or in attempt to reduce Chinese dominance). Simple stuff, like having replays for ALL matches in tournaments, instead of a maximum of 2 tables at once will be a good start. By selectively recording matches and not recording all, they run the gamble of missing out good matches, as well as having less publicity, as some countries may only have very few players in it, and ittf may miss out their match on recording which meant the event won't be mentioned in that country's media. Next perhaps invest in getting some better video recorders for the videos, as well as a few more staff in checking / editting the recordings.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Wait. I thought this was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not the ITTF. Wasn't the choice that was put before the ITTF: 2 players or NO OLYMPICS? Didn't they do the same with sports like gymnastics as well. Only 2 gymnasts from each country for individual events? Didn't they do that also? So, it wasn't exactly about table tennis.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[NextLevel]

Wait. I thought this was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not the ITTF. Wasn't the choice that was put before the ITTF: 2 players or NO OLYMPICS? Didn't they do the same with sports like gymnastics as well. Only 2 gymnasts from each country for individual events? Didn't they do that also? So, it wasn't exactly about table tennis.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

I think it might be an ITTF-driven choice as there are events with different quotas. But what no one has explained to me is why only 3 - why not 4 or 5 or even 6 since some people are so caught up with seeing the best players at the Olympics?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I could be wrong. But I thought that it was the IOC and the ITTF did not have much choice.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[TTFrenzy]

Wait. I thought this was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not the ITTF. Wasn't the choice that was put before the ITTF: 2 players or NO OLYMPICS? Didn't they do the same with sports like gymnastics as well. Only 2 gymnasts from each country for individual events? Didn't they do that also? So, it wasn't exactly about table tennis.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

I think the equation is/was/will be always the same. Money pool.

Western countries have more athletic companies and also dominate the asian market, so if western countries dont earn some medals at a specific sport then companies/sponsors dont have any economic motivation to sponsor or promote specific sports. Russia and romania were also dominating the world of gymnastics for many years so it doesnt seem weird to me.

So taking this into consideration & adding the fact that table tennis is impossible to understand and relate to as an average viewer I think TT will never be very popular in the next 20-30 years. Even in the sweden era, only specific countries were interested in TT

 

[TTFrenzy]

To be more precise I will never forget my dissapointment during and after the 2002 world cup. Referees were too biased over japan china and south korea. China had such a terrible team and even with biased referees got smacked big time.

I remember that nike adidas reebok were selling like crazy in those countries, especially in japan and south korea where the average buyer was more approachable.