Tomokazu Harimoto Tribute!

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Wow he is so good for his age. Btw is it a disadvantage for him that he is exposed so early? The chinese coaches will probably study him a ton and in contrast to that the chinese hide their young players so that they come up rather suddenly and the other players can't study them.

So when harimoto is 18 the chinese will have studied him for half a decade and he will face 20 year old chinese players who he has never seen.
 
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...when harimoto is 18 the chinese will have studied him for half a decade and he will face 20 year old chinese players who he has never seen.
Except Tomo's parents are Chinese table tennis insiders and they have relatives in China, so they can follow Chinese young players if they want to. Meanwhile Tomo will grow taller, extending his reach with arms, torso and legs, and he will add 20 pounds of muscle from 14 to 18 (growth plus workouts). He may lose 10% of his quickness, but he'll make up for that with power and knowledge. Gonna be fun to follow the developments. If I were in charge of Chinese table tennis, I'd work on getting him a super hot girlfriend for June, 2019 to derail him for a few years.
 
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I think he stands to lose more by "hiding" from the Chinese researchers, and his growth will most likely be stunted.

At the end of the day, no one country is inherently better at this sport than the other. It comes down to how much time, effort and resources are you willing to expend.

Honestly, it really comes down to how dedicated he is, and how well can he stay ahead of the curve at every stage in his career.
 

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This is Harimoto from today celebrating his win over Oshima at the japanese trials for the team WM next year. Thanks to this win he will be part of the japanese WM team.

cache.php


http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/tabletennis/news/2017/12/002360.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O6nO7PjmNU

His mother is there in the crowd at 0:03.
 
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Sure wish I knew Japanese. I would love some more insight into how he got so good so young, and why he yells so much, and how he has become a top-ten killer, especially how he figured out to stay within 3 feet of the table when he is actually capable of stepping back if he wants to. He is a brilliant tactician (at 14!!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FF25wKM7UA
 
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Except Tomo's parents are Chinese table tennis insiders and they have relatives in China, so they can follow Chinese young players if they want to. Meanwhile Tomo will grow taller, extending his reach with arms, torso and legs, and he will add 20 pounds of muscle from 14 to 18 (growth plus workouts). He may lose 10% of his quickness, but he'll make up for that with power and knowledge. Gonna be fun to follow the developments. If I were in charge of Chinese table tennis, I'd work on getting him a super hot girlfriend for June, 2019 to derail him for a few years.

He is more Japanese than Chinese. He will try to win gold for his Japanese foster country as Japan is the nation which he has been raised up from while China has not done anything for him. I always tell my kids who were born in US that this (US) is your real country even your parents were from a different one which has nothing to do with them.
 
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He is more Japanese than Chinese. He will try to win gold for his Japanese foster country as Japan is the nation which he has been raised up from while China has not done anything for him. I always tell my kids who were born in US that this (US) is your real country even your parents were from a different one which has nothing to do with them.


I really think so, too.

I heard that Tomokazu Harimoto decided to choose Japanese citizenship for playing table tennis as a Japanese athlete by himself. Certainly he is very young, I still think his own decision should be respected.
 
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Sure wish I knew Japanese. I would love some more insight into how he got so good so young, and why he yells so much, and how he has become a top-ten killer, especially how he figured out to stay within 3 feet of the table when he is actually capable of stepping back if he wants to. He is a brilliant tactician (at 14!!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FF25wKM7UA

I found it very interesting that the narrator called his parents 'chichi' and 'haha', which is considered be quite rude when you speak about someone else's family members. At least that's what our teachers said. All 3, 2 of them is japanese and they used to tell us if there is any difference between the actual spoken language and the textbook version.
 
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I hope Tomo learns to embrace both halves of his history, Japanese and Chinese. He is a great example of when two powerful cultures come together. Hope he will wear such a bandana one day:
bandana for Tomo.jpg

By the way, he's probably the youngest #11 in the world in history. Or the highest 14 year old ever. He'll probably go up during the World Team Cup in February.
 
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