OOAK Table Tennis Forum

This is what I don't understand. Why do you think it could be about you?

OK, my analysis was based on the original question whether these changes would increase the popularity of the sport. Anyhow, you expanded it to fairness for participators. In my view, your view of fairness is irrelevant to the particular participants we are talking about here. I will explain why below.

I know exactly how that made me feel as this was my situation when I was fencing. I was between one and three spots outside the national team for a few years, but never managed to break into the team. But my immediate thought was not "Gee, I wish they would have one more spot open so I would get into the team." or "Gee, I wish I 'd been born in Malawi where I would have ruled fencing, etc."

Those thoughts never ever crossed my mind. But as a serious athlete I rather reacted along the lines of "I need to try harder, work harder and go further", "I need to be better, to be the best". In my particular case this attitude made no difference at all in the longer run as I had reached the end of what my talents allowed in fencing.

Anyhow, what I am trying to say is that the motivational factors are quite different for professional athletes than for us serious hobby players.

A pro plays to the specifics of a certain competition and they are not particularly high on the mental checklist. The opponents are however at the top of the list, as the only real goal of participating in pro sports is to beat them all, no matter who they are and where they come from. Nothing else matters so the goal of the competition will remain the same.

In other words, nothing fundamental has changed. I believe it will be the same with Olympic table tennis and this rules change.

Will so many top players really be missing from the Olympics after the rules change?

Many certainly seems to argue for it, but let's see. To be called a top player, I assume we can agree to mean anyone in the Top100. Outside the Top100 can't really be counted as anything top, IMHO.

So, how many would we loose if the Olympics were held today and players selected by the current Top100 world ranking?

We would loose seven players. These are the ones:

Ma Lin, China
Patrick Baum, Germany
Seiya Kishikawa, Japan
Ryu Seung Min, South Korea
Tang Peng, Hong Kong
Chiang Hung-Chieh, Taiwan
Roko Tosic, Croatia

Personally I only see 2.5 top players in there. And only 1.5 capable of adding real quality to the competition. The rest - no offense to the players - but I don't see any of them setting the stage alight.

Those seven are what we loose in actual fact through this rule.
That is the actual number.
They represent the actual loss in quality.
That is the actual devaluation of the medals.

A lot less will change in reality than we think. Therefore, I do not believe this rules change will lead to anything bad for table tennis.

Could you, please, explain your calculation? Thanks.

I'm pretty sure that the calculation is made by looking at the top 100 list, how many countries have more then 2 players on that list and then remove every player who ranked as third player from that country, disregarding any other player, as they wouldn't make it to the Olympic games under the current rules, so no change for them.

If this is true, then why is it so important to reduce Chinese participants to two, to increase other nations chance of getting the bronze? If they all want the gold and nothing else, this wouldn't be an issue, but obviously ITTF and IOC thinks it is. Don't they know how pro mentality works?

To be fair, I think the difference will be minor, but my personal opinion is that this is a very bad decision and I don't like it. I don't think it will do any good or harm for the game of TT.

Yes, that is right. I have also excluded Austria and Sweden, the only two remaining teams with 3 players in the Top100 as both Jörgen Persson and Werner Schlager have retired from the major international tournaments, leaving both countries with only two in the Top100.

Sorry, but I am still not comfortable with that.

1. Not "the ITTF", but some people within the ITTF. The proposition has not been officially made and it has not been voted on yet.

2. We don't know, who thinks what within the IOC. What we know is that there is a provision in the Olympic Charter, which says not more than 3 participants per country in individual events. Which clearly means, that 3 participants per country, as we have in TT now, is OK. Those are the rules, opinions of some IOC people don't matter, the rules matter.

2. We also know about this provision of the Olympic Charter: "The NOCs shall send to the Olympic Games only those competitors adequately prepared for high level international competition.". Banning 7 TOP100-Players from the Olympic and replacing them with (relatively) low level players is a violation of this provision imho. Actually in 2008 there were 19 NOCs with 3 players (men). So we would have had 19 lower level players.

All this apart from the apparent motivation of the ITTF President to make it through a rule change impossible for China to win 3 medals. Which imho violates the ITTF rule about discrimination.

If you would choose to comment on my full paragraph which concerns individual players and their attitude instead of pulling an excerpt from a sentence inside the paragraph, perhaps then you would see that it concerns a completely different matter than what you apply it to.

Anyhow, wanting a gold and getting it is not the same thing, as I am sure everybody understands.
In any given tournament you can have 15-20 or perhaps even 40 guys with the intention of winning the gold. The simple fact is, only one will. Therefore the attitude of wanting to win gold is not the only factor that matters. It is not that simple. Training, skill sets and how your talent has been developed matters too, and the issue is that since China leads the way in just about every tt related field, the rest of the world will have too settle for the leftovers.

Since this is what seems to worry the IOC and the ITTF, they do what sports bodies are formed to do: they regulate to ensure the best future possible. That is their intention. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, and sometimes... it just does not matter either way.

That paragraph in the Olympic Charter applies only to National Olympic Committees and their actions, and can not be violated by the ITTF as such. How can you fail to understand that?

Of course, ITTF and NOCs have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with each other regarding Olympic Games . How could I.

Surely you did understand that I wrote that as the first post in this tread says that they are looking to reduce the numbers of participants from each country.

I don't care if it is Adham alone, or the entire ITTF, I refer to it as ITTF since the opinion raised comes from them, either as a board opinion or as the opinion of any individual in the ITTF. Since IOC seems to agree with it, I included IOC as well.

Sorry, but I fail to understand how that makes a difference.



This, on the other hand, is a totally different question. Wanting and getting is not the same thing, but since no one knows for sure who will win the Gold, then why make rules that will most likely affect the Bronze, a medal that no one enters the tournament to win?

If it is all about other nations getting medals, great, lets increase the number of medallist to 5 or 10, why not give every one who participates a medal, that would make every one happy.

@speedplay

It looks like I sad "word bickering" about your words, which I didn't. It would be nice, if you could correct that. Thanks.

Nope, I'm not going to correct it, as our members are forum veterans who knows what it means when a quote is changed like this. I could also have written wall of words about word bickering, cause that is essentially what I think you did in that post.