Published on : 04/07/2024
Ouvrons Grand les Jeux, Games wide open！
The highly anticipated Paris Olympics will be held from July 26 to August 11. China National teams and Hong Kong athletes are all ready for the game.
The "Our China Story" website has specially launched a Paris Olympics special series, capturing every splendid moment and sharing interesting stories of it.
This article tells the story of Fan Zhendong (樊振東), the main player of China's national table tennis team.
Fan Zhendong grew up in Guangzhou with passion to sing in Cantonese
Fan Zhendong became famous at a young age. To date he still holds many records, such as China's youngest world champion of men's table tennis.
But with 17 world champion titles to his name, Fan is still missing the most important one—the Olympic Men's Singles Gold Medal, which prevents him from achieving the "Grand Slam". Can he fulfil his dream at the 2024 Paris Olympics?
Fan Zhendong was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong in January 1997. There is a saying online: Fan Zhendong's parents were farmers from Hunan who came to Guangzhou to work. They came from a poor family, so Fan was sent back to his hometown in Hunan to be raised by his grandparents shortly after he was born.
This story is widely circulating, but it is somewhat different from the truth.
Fan Zhendong's father indeed comes from Hunan, but he is a graduate of a well-known university in Guangzhou and works for a company in Guangzhou. Therefore, Fan should have had a decent life since childhood, and he is not a so-called "left-behind child" in the countryside.
Growing up locally in Guangzhou, Fan Zhendong speaks fluent Cantonese and enjoys singing Cantonese songs with occasional performances in public. His favourite singer is Eason Chan.
"Chubby Boy" Fan Zhendong shows talent at 5 years old
When Fan Zhendong was 5, his mother took him to the Youth Palace of Haizhu District to learn table tennis. The coach there recalls that Fan was chubby back then, and everyone called him "Fat Boy" or "Little Fatty".
He showed extraordinary talent from the moment he started to learn, with "excellent hand-feel and a keen mind for analysis".
Two years later, Fan Zhendong won first place in a public competition representing the Haizhu District Youth Palace.
Due to his excellent performance, Fan Zhendong was chosen to receive training at the physical education school and was even selected by the military's August 1st Team (八一隊) to become a professional athlete at age 11.
At that time, his parents were indecisive about whether to let him continue to play table tennis; Fan Zhendong was a good student, and they wanted him to receive good education and go to college.
Luckily, the coach strongly believed in Fan's extraordinary talent and firmly convinced his parents to agree to their son's career as an athlete, which later proved that this coach did not misjudge him.
Read more: Paris Olympics 2024｜Ma Long's "last dance"?
Fan Zhendong holds various records in table tennis
With remarkable talent and hard training, Fan Zhendong, who plays aggressively and daringly, quickly improved his performance and was soon selected for the national team, in which he became a key player, fighting in battles across the country.
In the 2013 ITTF Polish Open, he became the youngest men's singles champion in the tour's history at the age of 16 years and 292 days.
In the 2014 Team World Table Tennis Championships held in Japan in May 2014, the Chinese team defeated the German team to win the 7th consecutive championship.
Fan Zhendong, who was just 17 years and 103 days old, surpassed Ma Long to become the youngest world champion in the history of Chinese men's table tennis. This record hasn't been broken to this day.
In 2018, Fan Zhendong, 21 years and two months old, topped the ITTF men's singles world ranking for the first time, becoming the youngest men's singles "World Number One" since the 21st century.
"Success at a young age" became a phrase commonly used by the media to describe Fan.
Fan Zhendong is still missing the Olympic Men's Singles gold medal
Of course, like all athletes, Fan Zhendong's performance has its ups and downs, yet for most of the time, he is a "champion harvester".
According to media in Mainland China, by the end of 2023, Fan had won 17 world championships in the three major table tennis competitions (World Cup, World Championships, and Olympics), making him second only to the "veteran" Ma Long among currently active Chinese table tennis players.
Despite his numerous world championship titles, Fan Zhendong has yet to win what is generally considered the most prestigious and valuable gold medal—the Olympic Men's Singles gold medal.
While Fan does have an Olympic gold medal, it's for the team event. He reached the Men's Singles final at the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, but unfortunately lost to Ma Long, winning only a silver medal.
For table tennis athletes, the "Grand Slam" is the ultimate dream, which entails winning all the men's singles championships and gold medals in the World Cup, World Championships, and Olympics.
Is Fan Zhendong planning to retire after Paris Olympics?
In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Fan Zhendong and his teammate Wang Chuqin (王楚欽) will compete in the Men's Singles.
Prior to this, Fan made a comment in an interview that "I now suspect that Ma Long will retire together with me".
And later he reposted the Chinese table tennis team roster on social media with the caption "The Last Dance", leading fans to speculate whether this prime star player plans to retire after the Paris Olympics.
Regardless of whether the retirement plan is real, his fans all hope that Fan Zhendong will perform well in Paris. Just as he said, "I hope to maintain my current mentality and condition, and give my all to adjust to my best condition."
Of course, fans are even more hopeful that Fan Zhendong can achieve the "Grand Slam" dream in Paris.
Read more: Why does the mixed-race beauty, Zheng Ninali decide to represent China?
