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2008 Olympics
2008 Olympics
UPDATED: March 26, 2007 NO.13 MAR.29, 2007
Ping Pong Master Is Back
Former table tennis world champion and current national coach Kong Linghui is toughening up the Chinese ping pong team
By TANG YUANKAI
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Kong's story cannot be told without mentioning Liu Guoliang, who is one year younger, but was already lead coach for the Chinese men's team when Kong took on his new role. They met each other for the first time at the national training camp for juniors at the end of 1987.

In the round robin of the team Liu defeated Kong. Rather than turning Kong against Liu, his defeat brought the pair closer and they worked together vowing to some day become world champions.

In 1995 Kong beat Liu in the male singles final at the 43rd World Table Tennis Championships. Stepping down from the winner's platform, Kong shook hands with Liu and said to him that competition is cruel, on which Liu agreed. It marked the beginning of a friendly rivalry between the close friends that lasted years.

The following year's glories belonged to Liu, who, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, won the men's doubles with Kong, as well as the men's singles. Later the same year he also won the Table Tennis World Cup.

In 1999, Liu achieved his first grand slam, taking the gold medal at that year's World Table Tennis Championships, and a year later his teammate Kong claimed the men's singles championship at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

"There's always encouragement to whoever loses a match between the two of us," Liu said. "It's a candid understanding of each other that makes our friendship even closer and enduring, but when the two of us come to a match, we fight it for real."

Kong ran into hard times before the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. "I took it for granted that I would make it to the men's singles and doubles at the Olympics as I had always been the seeded player for those two competitions," he said.

"However, I failed to make my way into the singles, and my name was not listed among players for the men's doubles." The situation spurred Kong into stunning defeats of Yan Sen and Wang Liqin to book himself a place in Athens after all.

Despite the hard work Kong has found time for love too. During his career he said: "The first thing I will do after my retirement is to marry my girlfriend Ma Su." He made their love affair public after claiming the men's doubles title at the 48th World Table Tennis Championships with teammate Wang Hao.

Kong got to know Ma Su, who was then a student at Beijing Film Academy, when they shot a television commercial. "I seldom watch movies and TV plays that she is cast in, because they are usually soft and slow, not to my taste," Kong said, adding that he preferred exciting television series such as Prison Break and 24 Hours.

On the other side, Ma seldom goes to watch Kong's matches either. "She gets very nervous every time she's at a game, but she just can't do anything to help," Kong said.

Whether she will be able to watch his students in action at next year's Olympics is another matter, but there is no doubt that win or lose, they will have Chinese fans on the edge of their seats.

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