Ma Long selected for Chinese men's team at Paris 2024
Ma Long will get a shot at extending his Olympic record after the People’s Republic of China named the legendary table tennis star in their squad for the men’s team event at Paris 2024.
The 35-year-old is the most successful Olympic table tennis player of all time, with Ma a five-time champion having won three team golds and two singles titles.
The 14-time world champion picked up his first team gold at London 2012, and went on to win both team and singles gold at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
Ma is currently ranked third in the world but that was not enough to make China’s singles roster for Paris, which was named last week, given Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong are the top two.
Unable to defend his singles crown, Ma – who beat Fan in the Tokyo final – will compete alongside both Wang and Fan in the team event in August, with world number four Liang Jingkun the alternate.
The Chinese Table Tennis Association also confirmed the roster for the women’s team event, again boasting the world’s top four players.
Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng – ranked one and two – are competing in the singles and are joined in the team event by Wang Manyu, with Wang Yidi the alternate.
Chen beat Sun in the gold medal match at Tokyo 2020, while the duo won team gold together alongside Wang Manyu, meaning the trio will be defending their title together.
China will therefore be the nation to beat at Paris 2024. They have won 32 of the 37 gold medals on offer since the sport made its Olympic debut at Seoul 1988.
That includes every gold in the team events since that format was introduced in 2008, while they have picked up gold and silver in the men’s and women’s singles at the past three Olympics. At Beijing 2008, they enjoyed a clean sweep of both the men’s and women’s podiums.
China did however fall short of winning every gold at Tokyo 2020, with Japan’s Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito beating Chinese pair Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen in the final of the inaugural mixed doubles event.
In Paris, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, the world’s top players, will compete together in the mixed doubles.
Meanwhile, China recently enjoyed a double in the inaugural WTT Saudi Smash table tennis tournament in Jeddah on Saturday (11 May).
The men’s world number one Wang won on his 24th birthday, with Chen winning the women’s singles.