I would say studying players and producing players are two different things. The later based on how smoothly the TT system of that country works, while the former is about the depth of the TT team with decent coaches and players. Even Korea have not produced any player at the Grand Slam tier, their team is still strong enough to effectively study anyone, plus their coaches are very experience in doing these analyzing things. Remember JYS? He gave Ma Long and Zhang Jike hard times in 2016 olympics.It all boils down to perspective. What you said can easily be valid from the french pov also, are the koreans better at studying players than the french? How so? Since the ruy/joo and oh sang eun era, korea men's team hasnt break through yet. They didnt produce a lebrun or a harimoto, so I really dont see how exactly it was a "mistake"
Exchanging knowledge and being suspicious of your opponent are both different POV's if you ask me
The swedes, persson waldner etc, put cameras in the chinese camp just to irritate them. The camera's didnt record anything.
So a laid back chinese player could say " im better than them, let them record me all they want"
and a suspicious one would say " those f***ers, I wont play my best in practice so they dont evaluate me"
Can you try and guess which one of the two chinese falls straight into the mind trap???
I analysed too much, all am saying is, the practice you mentioned was not a crucial or deciding factor.
If indeed there is a case like that then the french coaches and lebrun brothers are not smart enough to assess such a situation...but you are smart enough?![]()
In contrast, French TT has a "good" system (not sure if I can say this). They can produce top players like Gatien, Legout, Lebrun Brothers, etc. But they do not have a "collective" nation team as Korean. You can't tell a player like Gauzy or Lebesson to simulate their rivals so that Lebrun's brothers can adapt with. However Korean team can do this since they have a strong team, wide range of players and they know how to "obey" their coaches. So the problem is not how smart you are, it is about how strong your team is.