Data map: Sun Yingsha won the Olympic simulation three championships. Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency

  Chinanews client, Beijing, August 22 (Reporter Wang Yu) Looking at the current domestic sports arena, the CBA has just retired, and it is still unsatisfactory. The Chinese Super League semi-finals have revived and set off a green trend. However, just under the IP "fighting" of the two major domestic competitions, the National Table Tennis Olympic Sim Tournament has emerged and attracted much attention.

  Under the background that domestic sports are reviewing the current situation and starting anew, an Olympic simulation game held within the Chinese table tennis team has continued to heat up since the list of entries was announced. With a 68-year history, why did the national table tennis team create this “topping” social media game that is favored by the Internet and TV broadcasts?

  Nowadays, it is not uncommon for the domestic dream team to sweep the international arena, but how to expand the domestic market and form an influence that matches the strength is quite a difficult problem. If you want to break through the constraints of competition and successfully achieve a win-win situation between sports promotion and the spiral improvement of competitive level, the Chinese table tennis team has undoubtedly come to the fore.

Data map: Liu Guoliang in the game as a player. Photo by China News Agency reporter Mao Jianjun 

  Looking back on history, calmly the Guotuan won the first world championship in 1959, to train Deng Yaping, Liu Guoliang and many other Grand Slam players, and then to Malone and Ding Ning reaching the top of Rio, aiming to defend the title, the record is shining, and the celebrity is frequently played in China The table tennis team has become the flagship of Chinese sports.

  But once, "No one can beat the Chinese table tennis team, what's the point?" The argument flooded the domestic sports arena. As a "national football" with a strong mass base, it is trapped in a vicious circle where national table tennis players have overcome difficulties in the international arena, but only during the Olympics and other major competitions can they gain attention.

  It is against this background that after the 2012 London Olympics, Cai Zhenhua, the former head coach of the Chinese table tennis team, proposed the concept of "the third entrepreneurship". That is, "developing from a single training and competition to a diversified direction, and comprehensively enhancing the influence of table tennis at home and abroad."

On December 3, 2013, Liu Guoliang, the head coach of the National Table Tennis Team, led his team members to participate in the "National Table Tennis Tour in Shanghai Jiaotong University" at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. As a student of Jiaotong University, Yao Ming also specially came to help out and competed with the world champions of table tennis on the spot. Photo by Tang Yanjun issued by China News Agency

  For the national table tennis player with numerous reputations in the arena, if you want to "break the circle", you must completely break the conventional development thinking, and the difficulty is tantamount to starting anew. "How to enhance the influence of national table tennis?" has become a topic that Liu Guoliang has been thinking about for a long time since then.

  "If our players can only win gold medals without comprehensive qualities, and cannot be loved by more fans, wouldn't they become'gold medal machines'?" Liu Guoliang once said. Since then, the Chinese table tennis team has expanded its focus of development from purely competitive performance to being able to form a benign interaction with society.

  The Rio Olympics has become a milestone time node in the development of national table tennis. The ace division who won all the gold medals was dubbed the "No. 1 Internet Red Team in the Universe" almost overnight. "Fat guy who doesn't understand the ball" and "Wake up, this is the Olympics" series of labels or quotations became popular online. Faced with such a situation, Liu Guoliang also ridiculed: "Originally, I was relying on my strength to feed, how come I became an Internet celebrity after the Olympics?"

In the 2016 Rio Olympic Men's Table Tennis Team Finals, the Chinese team finally defeated the Japanese team with a total score of 3:1 to win the championship. The picture shows Xu Xin (first from left), Ma Long (second from left), Liu Guoliang (second from right), and Zhang Jike on the podium. Photo by Chinanews reporter Sheng Jiapeng

  As a Grand Slam winner, Ma Long is also popular among fans. As for whether he is used to the hot feeling of table tennis nowadays, Ma Long once said: "If you are not used to it, you have to get used to it. Through the Olympics, more fans will like table tennis. I hope this will be more exciting. Our potential makes the game more exciting and makes fans love table tennis more."

  Whether it is Liu Guoliang, Ma Long, Zhang Jike, or Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen of the women's team, the Rio Olympics has brought a surge in popularity, which indeed provides an opportunity for Guoping to promote marketization. At the same time, it originated from Liu Guoliang in the team in 2006. A pioneering effort promoted has also become the booster of Guoping's "third entrepreneurship".

  At that time, in order to sharpen the mental quality of the players, Liu Guoliang urged the establishment of the first National Table Tennis World Championships Team Direct Tournament. The publicly conducted intra-team trials produced some candidates for major events. This is the first time that Guoping has made competition “transparent”. After the London Olympics, Guoping introduced fan voting for the first time. The online voting in just 6 days finally attracted nearly 3 million votes.

The Chinese table tennis team, which won four gold medals in the Rio Olympics, arrived at the Capital Airport and was enthusiastically sought after by fans. The picture shows Liu Guoliang appeared at the Capital Airport, surrounded by a large number of media and fans. Photo by Jin Shuo, China News Network reporter

  Under the “temptation” of the quota for international competitions, the high level of national table tennis will be displayed in the international competition venues, incisively and vividly displayed in front of domestic audiences. While ensuring the level of the competition, it will be opened to the outside world to a great extent, and it will meet market requirements. An active attempt by.

  Entering the stage of preparing for the Tokyo Olympics, taking into account the cruelty of the Olympics, in order to create a strong mentality and bold shots for athletes, National Table Tennis once again innovated, adopting the first elimination and then "blood battle" competition system, the strongest confrontation + brutal competition system + world Table tennis places are in suspense, and this kind of competition naturally attracts more attention.

  And with more opportunities for display, not only table tennis idols such as Zhang Jike, Ma Long, Ding Ning, and Liu Shiwen have super-high off-court appeal to promote the popularization of the project, even young players such as Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan, Sun Yingsha, and Wang Manyu can also be More people know it and even have their own fan base.

Data map: Chinese fans cheer for Zhang Jike. Photo by China News Agency reporter Zeng Nai

  Not only that, there was a "gender war" between Zhang Yining and a 15-year-old male player in the 2006 National Table Tennis Women's Asian Games Trial. And such an eye-catching duel has also been continued as a tradition within the national table tennis team. Whether it was preparing for the Budapest World Championships last year or during the training camp this year, the "gender wars" were held from time to time, that is, while enhancing the confrontation between players, it was full of gimmicks.

  From online voting for World Table Tennis Championship qualifications to the innovation of the trial competition system, to leading the team into the campus, the famous host Zhang Bin once commented on the National Table Tennis Road: "I feel that they are eager for more people to participate, share, and consume. Liu Guoliang even Take this as the most important work at this stage."

  "Hone the will, train the mind, dare to innovate, and take responsibility", a slogan like this is hung in the National Table Tennis Training Hall in Lingshui, Hainan. The strong talent pool and guarantee system are the trump cards of the Chinese table tennis team standing in the world table tennis for a long time, and the combination of strength and innovation and courage have jointly created the current state of the country's table tennis. (Finish)