44 Players in 2016 Rio Olympics Are Chinese Born

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A new article has been released on the nytimes.com website about how of the 172 table tennis players playing at the Rio Olympic Games, at least 44 were born in China. You can read the full article here. A table below by nytimes.com displays this:

rioolympic.jpg

tabletennisrio2016outlier.jpg


What's everyone's opinion on this? IS this a problem or not?
 
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Yes it is a big problem. Outsiders of table tennis just don't take the game seriously anymore when they see two Chinese-European players against each other. And their presence just keeps increasing because the young talents of a country don't get the possibility to develop themselves internationally - the Chinese-born players are better and are therefore sent out to European/World championships.
 
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Chinese born, but are citizens
So legally there is no problem.

If they really want to check, Dima is a problem too?
They should check of all the TT players, how many is foreign born.
I'm sure it is not just the Chinese.

Migration is a common thing today, so not surprised.
 
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Yes it is a big problem. Outsiders of table tennis just don't take the game seriously anymore when they see two Chinese-European players against each other.


But are they fine to see 2 African-European players?
Or 2 Latin-European players
Not just TT but in all sports?

You know, there are a lot of European-African players in South Africa (in all sports)
We don't complain here
 
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But are they fine to see 2 African-European players?
Or 2 Latin-European players
Not just TT but in all sports?

You know, there are a lot of European-African players in South Africa (in all sports)
We don't complain here

Yep. Lots of European basketball players who don't look too European to me.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus
 
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it doesnt matter who and where , as long as if they can be good enough to win 1st and 2nd seats of that country , they can represent it. Legal citizen of course :p , i'm sure there is a small exception for those high calibers players that migrate to another country and became legal citizen very fast lolz. ML and Lin Dan were to migrate to the USA ? oh they will become citizenship in a few weeks lolz. USA has never medal on these 2 sports :p
 
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it doesnt matter who and where , as long as if they can be good enough to win 1st and 2nd seats of that country , they can represent it. Legal citizen of course :p , i'm sure there is a small exception for those high calibers players that migrate to another country and became legal citizen very fast lolz. ML and Lin Dan were to migrate to the USA ? oh they will become citizenship in a few weeks lolz. USA has never medal on these 2 sports :p


On that note, the ITTF has a rule to counter this already.
I can't remember it exactly, but if you are older than 18 years old and have already represented your country then you need to wait x amount of years before you can represent another country.
I think it is 6 or 7 years.

And plus if you add the years for citizenship, the player would easily be 30+ by then
And on top of this rule, if you are already 20 something (can't remember the age), you can't represent any other country again
 
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Chinese born, but are citizens
So legally there is no problem.

If they really want to check, Dima is a problem too?
They should check of all the TT players, how many is foreign born.
I'm sure it is not just the Chinese.

Migration is a common thing today, so not surprised.

Yes, migration is common, but there are so many cases of foreign-born players representing another country. Dima's parents actually moved to Germany shortly after he was born, but on the other side we have Li Ping - former member of the chinese national team who became a Qatar citizen all of a sudden. Of course every country wants to be proud with the medals they get, but I just can't accept that someone represents a country where he/she has been only to get his/her citizenship.
 
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But are they fine to see 2 African-European players?
Or 2 Latin-European players
Not just TT but in all sports?

You know, there are a lot of European-African players in South Africa (in all sports)
We don't complain here

Yes, in the Netherlands sometimes people complain about other combinations as well, but I feel like it happens a lot more with table tennis (and badminton). I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just the stereotype of linking table tennis with China.

The Dutch women's team has performed really well a couple years ago. They won the European team championships 4 times in a row. Li Jiao won the singles title twice. But they weren't even nominated for national sports team of the year. And before the Rio Olympics started, I was reading a special edition of my regional newspaper, about 30 pages long, which was focused solely on the female Dutch athletes who participate in Rio. Not a single word about our table tennis team. The only TT item mentioned was on the schedule page: "00:30 - Men's team final, China vs ???".
Most people just don't care, even those who play TT.
 
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So? they increase the level of competition in their country. Making table tennis better for everyone.

China is also a big freaking country, its only natural that the main sport in the most populated country in the world will have some of those people migrating and playing for other countries. After all they are way waaaaaaaay more chinese people than any other people in the world, so i say this again what is the problem?

Every since they made that amazingly dumb rule that only 2 people from 1 country could participate in order to avoid china to have all the medals wich i think is stupid and racist, they come up with stuff like this.

In football there are tons of african and latin american people playing for european countries because they migrated and they come from a background that doesnt give them the chance to play for a team with a fighting chance to do something important. So they get their nationality sorted and thats it. So what is the big deal?
 
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There's a difference between moving a country at young age with the family and being a mercenary.

Most Chinese expats move to other coutry solely to play representative table tennis. It satifies both player and association's demand in short terms but it hinders local players' development system as it robs that country's right (to send localy developped players to international tournaments).

Sure ITTF doen't allow expats to play in Worlds but they still play in PTs and Olympics. I don't know about you but watching endless women's finals between China A and China B(HK, SG, DE) bores the hell out of me.

Some of them do settle in and set up their own table tennis school and clubs so I'm eager to see the 2nd generation expats representing their country which has already happened in some countries.
 
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Yes, in the Netherlands sometimes people complain about other combinations as well, but I feel like it happens a lot more with table tennis (and badminton). I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just the stereotype of linking table tennis with China.

The Dutch women's team has performed really well a couple years ago. They won the European team championships 4 times in a row. Li Jiao won the singles title twice. But they weren't even nominated for national sports team of the year. And before the Rio Olympics started, I was reading a special edition of my regional newspaper, about 30 pages long, which was focused solely on the female Dutch athletes who participate in Rio. Not a single word about our table tennis team. The only TT item mentioned was on the schedule page: "00:30 - Men's team final, China vs ???".
Most people just don't care, even those who play TT.

The whole problem is stereotyping.

If you see a white man, there is dozens of countries he can be from.
If you see a black man, there is dozens of countries he can be from
If you see a Chinese man, he is from China

One can be born in Germany, but of a Chinese ethnic group, and people will still say its China vs China
Many of the so-called "mercenaries" immigrated while teenagers - to look for a better future for him or herself.
Now, what is the purpose of immigration?
My parents immigrated to South Africa for a better future for all of us. And i'm not the only one and the only race. The Britsh and Dutch came to South Africa hundreds of years ago for the same reason (for Gold and Diamonds), every immigration is of a purpose, and table tennis is a valid purpose. Its about life, its about career.

I agree with the taking away from local talent.
But I believe the ratio is more towards helping local talent than oppose to be taking away.
There are so many "mercenaries" in USA, to me it helps Lily Zhang a lot, don't you think?
Sports is about the best man wins.
If you are not good enough, you will loose, and you are out.

The problem is not the players who migrate
The problem is the administrators who balance fairness vs medal hopes.
So don't point your hate/fingers at one ethnic group (Chinese), or the players, point them as the administrators
 
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Agree with tony well said there. Most parts of the article are irrelevant to the real issue.

The only fact that is worth worrying is this paragraph

Players notice when recently transferred athletes appear interested only in furthering their own careers, or fail to exceed some ambiguous threshold of enthusiasm about their new homes, or spend most of their time in their home countries.



Most federations select the easy way which is wrong for the growth of TT in general. And the article writer dont know which questions to ask in order to "solve" the "issue"

Ni xia lian for example is in luxemburg since 1991 according to wikipedia. In the article it is stated that she was hired mostly to coach but then it was clear she was better then everyone so she still represents luxemburg.

Nobody cant know for a fact what luxemburg has done for ni xia lian and ni xia lian for luxemburg. except ni xia lian and the people governing the tt federation

But my question (which also applies to other chinese in western countries, not only in the above example) is :

Did li xia nian (chinese born representing a western country) and the luxemburg TT federation (please place any western federation) cooperate/worked together (all these 25(?) years) in order to grow TT in luxemburg (produce players/talents,popularize the game) or do they just take advantage of each other to fulfil their own personal goals??

For those who didnt read dima's recent interview, the budget for TT in germany is severely reduced if they dont bring medals in olympics. I know for a fact that this policy is the same in many EU countries in many different sports. Olympics bring popularity/fame, fame brings sponsors= money

So instead of "blaming" the chinese for their domination in many aspects of the game, even competitiveness among western born players vs chinese trained players (born chinese is not even an issue, ariel hsing and lily zhang are 100% americans regarding their nurture, way of life, education, personality, mentality & even tt training), maybe they should try to learn a thing or two and try to emulate the parts of chinese training programs that can be emulated in the western way of life, because western kids simply cannot practice 8 hours a day like the chinese do


Western countries simply cannot copy (for various reasons) what mao zedong did for table tennis & china in the 50's but they can sure get some inspiration/ideas on how to grow TT in the long term...but do all the TT organizations really want to grow TT in a long term plan? TTX is a joke

Im quite sure that the ITTF and most of the TT federations didnt even bother to ask all the western players that managed to beat the chinese and be the best of their opinion on what to do with TT.

appelgren and waldner a recent example. Swedish TV wanted them to comment for olympics and they didnt even show matilda ekholm's effort and I think the TT coverage in sweden was very poor so they protested and stopped cooperating with them. I hope their decision maybe shakes some stubborn heads, but I highly doubt it

 
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Saw this article earlier its worrying that table tennis is the number 1 sport in the Olympics that has most chinese born in China representing other countries. Table Tennis leads by a long way over other sports. Could this have an impact on table tennis being in the Olympics long term?

as long as there are tons of money on the line, even pokemon go has a chance to be an olympic sport [-_^]
 
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Well said TTFrenzy

I think one important aspect to note:
- China has a huge population
- In general Chinese immigration has boomed the past decade (due to China relaxing it immigration laws compared to the previous decades and Chinese exactly have wealth or skills to immigrate)
- A huge population of Chinese table tennis players that want to immigrate

I also like to note
- American trained basketball players are also going to lots of countries and playing Pro and dunking on local talent.
- A huge number of footballs stars also immigrate
But the above 2, I don't see so many of them making international stages (maybe national bodies are strict?)

Table Tennis is an interesting sport. We all know you need to train with someone better than you for your to improve.
Take USA for example, according to the article - 3 of 6 is Chinese born. It is Feng, Wu, Zheng.
Guess who won the last US nationals?
Now if there were no Chinese born players in the US, would Lily and Kanak be as good?
I would say both Lily and Kanak's level would not be where it is today if it wasn't for the foreign imports.

So just like everything in life, there is a pro and con of everything.
If you only see the con, your life will also be miserable
If you can see the pro, your life can improve.
 
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