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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/s...are-chinese-born-six-play-for-china.html?_r=0
At Least 44 Table Tennis Players in Rio Are Chinese-Born. Six Play for China.
By ANDREW KEH and KEVIN QUEALYAUG. 17, 2016
- Many sports at the Olympics feature athletes who were born outside the country they represent. The United States, for example, has dozens of athletes born outside the country, across more than 20 sports. But table tennis is an outlier: About a third of its participants this summer were born outside the nation they are representing. All other sports are far behind.
Note: Estimates are rounded to the nearest percentage.
Source: International Olympic Committee
No two athletes’ stories or circumstances are the same. But considered together, the list of Chinese-born table tennis players highlights the huge scope of China’s influence in the sport and illustrates perhaps its most pressing question: Is this the best way for table tennis to grow?
“It’s not a problem,” Thomas Weikert, the president of the International Table Tennis Federation, the sport’s governing body, said last week in an interview. “It’s an issue.”
Photo
Li Ping, 30, left the Chinese national team last year to compete for Qatar. CreditAlkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
At these Olympics, it has been business as usual. Ding Ning of China beat Li Xiaoxia of China to win the gold medal in the women’s singles tournament. Ma Long of China defeated Zhang Jike of China to win the men’s competition. On Tuesday, the Chinese women won gold in the team competition, and the men did the same on Wednesday.
Continue reading the main story
China has now won 28 of the 32 gold medals awarded in all competitions since table tennis was added to the Olympics in 1988. Eight years ago in Beijing, China won the gold, silver and bronze medals in both men’s and women’s singles. In 2012, after a new rule was instituted limiting singles competitions to two players from each nation, China merely swept the gold and silver medals.
One byproduct of China’s dominance — and the popularity of the sport in the country — has been an extremely large group of talented players who are not quite good enough to play in the national program. In the Chinese system, perfected over many decades, provincial clubs draw players from city teams before sending their best to the national program. Only the best 50 men and best 50 women reach the top.
“There was too much competition,” said Ni, who left the national team in 1986 to attend college before joining a professional club in Germany in 1989. “I didn’t have the courage anymore.”
Such decisions became widely possible only after economic reforms in the country in 1978 loosened the rules for overseas movement and work.
Before the 1988 Olympics, Massimo Costantini was playing for Italy in the European qualifying tournament when he encountered Ding Yi, a player who had moved from China to Austria. Costantini, now the coach of the United States team, lost to Ding that day, and he remembered the other players, coaches and fans feeling bewildered about what had happened.
“We were shocked, actually, to be playing against someone Chinese,” said Costantini, who was later added to the Olympics as a wild-card entrant.
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Ding played in four Olympics for Austria, and the trend only grew. Players facing dim prospects in China have increasingly sought to extend their careers as both players and coaches in other countries eager.
“After I lost my opportunity to get into the Chinese national team, I was still young; I still had my dream,” said Eugene Wang, 30, who was offered a spot on the Canadian team shortly before the 2012 Games. “At the same time, I had this invitation. I just went for it.”
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Marcos Madrid, a player from Mexico, sighed and smiled when asked how players felt about the spread of Chinese players worldwide. “It’s complicated,” he said, echoing the sentiments of many players in the game.
Everyone acknowledges how far ahead China remains in terms of training and skill. The thinking for many national federations, then, has been that having such skilled players and coaches around — beyond giving them a chance to win competitions in the short term — will raise the skill levels of those countries’ other players.
“I know in my mind I need to practice more because they are there,” Madrid said.
In most parts of the world, there are simply not enough good players to measure oneself against. Chinese players often double as coaches and valuable sparring partners for players in their adopted countries.
When Ni was asked to come to Luxembourg, it was mostly to coach. She committed to playing full-time again only when it became clear she was the country’s best player.
“I feel that it’s great that they can help other players improve,” said Ma, the world’s top men’s player.
At the same time, many players become irked when the spirit of competition seems to be undermined.
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.
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“It doesn’t mean we can change the rule immediately,” Weikert said, noting that 222 national associations would need to vote. “Maybe other people are thinking another way, and I accept this.”Whether the rule changes or not, Weikert said, he would like to do more to change the global imbalance in skill.
In the interview, Weikert revealed that the I.T.T.F. had begun work in recent months on a project through which young, non-Chinese players, with the cooperation of the Chinese association, could live and train at the country’s training sites for years at a time, learning and improving in that highly competitive ecosystem.
The plan, still in its early stages of development, has an internal name: Made by China.
“Of course, it’s difficult for a sport if only one nation is winning,” Weikert said. “But this is not the fault of the Chinese. The others have to practice hard.”
乒乓球界的“中国制造”：大陆球员遍布世界
里约奥运ANDREW KEH, KEVIN QUEALY2016年8月18日
James Hill for The New York Times
于梦雨代表新加坡队与日本队争夺铜牌，冯天薇（左）和周一涵在一旁观战。三名选手都在中国出生。
1983年，倪夏莲帮助中国队赢得了一枚世界乒乓球锦标赛的金牌。但即便如此，她也没能让教练们确信她能够进入这个国家的顶尖选手之列。于是她离开了。
倪夏莲最初喜欢上这项运动时，还是一个七岁的上海小学生。上个星期，53岁的她第三次征战奥运会，第三次穿上卢森堡的奥运队服，1991年，她移民到这个国家。在这项需要精细预判的运动里，她在25年前显得不合传统的行为如今看来颇具先见之明。
当时，只有少数中国运动员移民到若干特定的欧洲国家。但是这股潮流不断发展，如今，六大洲都遍及着成熟的中国乒乓球海外军团，他们重塑了这项运动的面貌。
在本届夏季奥运会上，中国出生的乒乓球运动员当然会代表中国参赛，但在56个参赛国中，还有其他21个国家也派出了中国出生的运动员参赛。在参加奥运会的172名乒乓球运动员中，至少有44人是在中国出生的。
The New York Times
奥林匹克赛事中，有很多运动员都不是在自己所代表的国家出生的。比如美国就有几十名运动员不是在本土出生，他们分别参加20多个项目。但是乒乓球是一个异数：今年的夏季奥运会上，三分之一的乒乓球选手都不是在自己所代表的国家出生。这个数字远远高于其他项目。
每个运动员的故事或成长环境都不相同。但是总的看来，中国出生的乒乓球运动员反映出中国对这项运动的广泛影响，也反映出一个或许是最为迫切的问题：这是乒乓球运动发展的最好方式吗？
“这不是一个问题，”这项运动的领导机构，国际乒乓球联合会的主席托马斯·韦克特(Thomas Weikert)上周在接受采访时说。“而是一项课题。”
