Ma Long opens up on fatherhood and motivation in exclusive interview
The table tennis GOAT – no athlete has won more Olympic gold medals in the sport – tells Olympics.com how he balances his personal and sporting lives, and what motivates him to keep going at 34.
Table Tennis
Five-time Olympic champion, 13-time World Championships gold medallist, table tennis legend, the greatest of all time, father and husband.
Ma Long is all of that, maintaining an impressive level of consistency that has kept the 34-year-old at the top echelons of the sport for much of the last decade.
Ma, who hails from the northeastern Chinese city of Anshan, has won more Olympic gold medals than anyone else, and is also the most successful male table tennis player of the modern post-World War era at the World Championships.
While reaching that level of excellence has come with decades of hard work, things really changed for the Chinese paddler, nicknamed 'the Dragon', when his first son was born in 2017. However, Ma continued to keep a low profile in his private life away from the table.
Now, Ma has given an insight into how he has been able to juggle both family and sport – something he admits has come at a cost, in a recent interview with Olympics.com via the ITTF.
"Of course to some extent, there were definitely some sacrifices such as spending time with my family," he says.
Ma Long: Separating sport from family
Ma comes across as someone who is self-aware. He readily acknowledges that – like so many other athletes globally, but especially so in China with its outlook on sports development – his pursuit of athletic perfection means that other things have fallen to the wayside.
Such as family time. "I am very grateful to my family, my parents, my wife, including my children. Grateful that they have always supported me in the things I like to do, and they all support me unequivocally," Ma says.
"They probably feel that there are times when I not only belong to them, but also belong to this (Chinese national table tennis) team," the Dragon admits. "But I also have my own dreams, and they are able to separate that (from his family role)."
He's also very clear about his position in the national team, despite being the captain of the side that recently won the men's team event at the World Table Tennis Championships for a 22nd time.
"The Chinese table tennis team is not made up of only me," Ma insists. "There are many people behind it, including the coach and others working behind the scenes. They are focused on making our style of play or our team perform better, researching what kind of technology has been innovated, things like that. This is everyone's unified goal."
Ma says that point, that the Chinese national team doesn't revolve around just him giving his all, has helped him better appreciate the balance between his roles as a father, son, family man, and captain of the national team, allowing him to reflect on his off-court life. "Apart from being on the field where I want to be an athlete who fights on the field of play, I think I'm just an ordinary person.
"Aside from maybe being a better table tennis player, I live my life no different than others in normal life do. So I think this how I try to separate everything."
Ma Long's best Olympic moment
How does someone who has won everything – Olympic singles and team gold; World Championships singles, doubles, and team gold; World Cup singles and team gold; and the World Tour/WTT Cup Finals in singles and doubles – look back at their career?
Ma is, perhaps infamously, a humble man. And so it proves in his answer to the question of whether his past victories motivate him to keep going for more. "Actually I don't think too much about my personal honours," the Dragon – also known as 'the Dictator' for the way he dictates matches through his style of play – replies.
"It's rather about my continuous love for the sport. Whether it's about researching how the ball moves, or studying myself and my play, I feel like I really belong to table tennis.
"I think about table tennis a lot of the time, so I've always paid more attention to how I am able to improve my skills and tactics and how to stay healthy. I think this is what I've always wanted. As for whatever titles or records, that is for others to talk about themselves; I'm more focused on how I can improve myself and stay in the best shape."
However, that's not to say Ma doesn't look back at everything he's achieved. There is even one point that sticks out in his mind when he's asked for his favourite Olympic Games moment, one he offers up with little hesitation.
"When I look back at it a lot now, I think my point against Mizutani (Jun). I would name that immediately as a quite important and beautiful point, especially doing that on the Olympic stage," he says of his famous rally against Japan's Mizutani in the Rio 2016 semi-final that has gone viral multiple times.
"With that feeling of suffocating pressure, that point I think is still the most beautiful," Ma explains. "From 3–0 up in games, he chased me back to 3–2. Then in the sixth game, the point at the start of the game at 2–1. Both of us played this long rally with many attacking and defensive transitions.
"That was a really crucial point and an exciting one. It was an important one in the context of the match so to me that's the most exciting point I've played at the Olympics."
Ma Long turned 34 last week, and with his young family growing up around him and his competitions, have his kids shown any talent for table tennis?
"Not yet, because they're still young," Ma says. "They might watch me play and then cheer me on. I think they'll have some sports talent but I haven't seen it in table tennis yet."
Perhaps his son has played around with the table tennis paddle, though? "Right now, any thing he picks up, he waves around," the Dragon laughs as he relaxes his stoic manner.
Yes, Ma is now 34. Yet he shows no signs of slowing down. The Paris 2024 Olympic Games aren't that far away.
"I'm not sure. I hope I can go," Ma ventures when asked about the next Games, when he will be three months shy of turning 36. "I haven't thought about the day I retire. I'm still following the path (to Paris), even though it's tough and you might not be sure if you can get there.
"I think I need to be serious and responsible – I must be worthy of a spot. Worthy of table tennis, worthy of my country, and worthy of myself."