At Paris 2024, he played a bit part in China winning the table tennis team gold. For the uninitiated, following the Games on television, he was the unassuming silent one of the doubles pair. He mostly sat on the bench with a blank expression. When the coach spoke to the stars during break, he stood next to them looking clueless as if the Mandarin they spoke was Greek to him.
But before and after the match, the aloof boy with dreamy eyes would get treated like a rock star. Girls would confess their love from stands, kids would cry for his T-shirt and would virtually faint when he obliged. Rivals, with unadulterated awe in their eyes, would line-up to get pictures with him. The connoisseurs would run for their lives to catch China’s doubles games. They would be blind to the other three on the table, every eye at the stadium was fixed on only one man – Ma Long. This was to be the last Olympics for the 35-year-old, who the world agreed was the greatest TT player ever.
Like the contradiction in his name, that isn’t really Long, his outward ordinariness hides the real identity of the man who mastered one of the world’s most popular sport. Anyone who has watched him play – even those who play TT to kill time during hostel days or bunking work during office hours – would notice his majestic presence on the table. In case a TT table was used for a sit-in meal at a restaurant, the waiter would always walk to Ma Long with the bill. His seat is always at the head of the table. Regardless of whether he won or lost, the Chinese legend with neat strokes and Federer-like movements always ‘looks’ the better player.
China’s Ma Long, with his teammate Wang Chuqin, plays against Sweden’s Anton Kallberg and Kristian Karlsson during the men’s gold medal team table tennis match at the 2024 Paris Olympics (AP)
If he was so good, why wasn’t Ma Long trying for the singles Gold in his swansong Games? Who in their right mind would reduce a five-times Olympics gold medallist to a doubles player that too for the team event? The answer is simple: China, the country that is an assembly line of champions and follows a ruthless and unsentimental selection policy. Around there they don’t go by reputation. It is always rankings and results. Ma Long’s form had slightly faded and that was enough to downgrade him.
It is their unending talent pool that gives China the conviction to be the ardent followers of TT meritocracy. Like champions before him, Ma Long would dutifully do what he was asked. His commitment to his team remained uncompromising, even when he was on the sidelines. In the singles event with China’s Fan Zhendong trailing 0-2, the camera caught a teary Ma Long in the stands. He didn’t want his country’s golden streak to end – so what if he was there just for the doubles. He did his part with clinical efficiency, he would remain unbeaten and get his 6th Olympic gold. No Chinese in any sport can match this gold haul.
Ma Long epitomises the strong ethos of Chinese table tennis. He is a perfect product of a system that appreciates sincerity and values hard work. Ma Long didn’t take any short cuts because there were none. A video series filmed by one-time British TT player Daniel Ives – The Journey Through Chinese Table Tennis – gives a brief sneak into the world’s most productive table tennis factory of champions. The secret, he concludes, is no secret. Relentless training and passion for the sport is the reason the country keeps churning out Olympic gold medalists.
China’s Ma Long, with his teammate Wang Chuqin, plays against Sweden’s Anton Kallberg and Kristian Karlsson during the men’s gold medal team table tennis match at the 2024 Paris Olympics. (AP)
During his short trip, Ives visited Ma Long’s club, some TT hubs and also China’s training centre for its elite players. He draws vibrant pictures of the halls pinging with the endless tak-tak of plastic balls hitting the wooden tables. Most public TT clubs have over 15 tables and are open 24×7. Players in the 6 to 66 age range play against each other. They use different types of rubbers and lock horns in several games. It’s an ultra-competitive atmosphere where coaches don’t extend any special treatment for stars. Coaches bark instructions to world champions as they do to the beginners. Ma Long went through the same grind.
Fame and titles didn’t change him much. Despite his record-breaking Olympics feat and the Beatles-like mass adulation, Ma Long in Paris behaved like his team’s fourth-best player. The GOAT behaved like a calf.
Once Ma Long was asked why Chinese TT stars lacked airs and attitude. He said it was impossible for the sense of superiority to sneak in them. “When you are training in China. The juniors around you are world champions, your training partner is a world champion and even your coach is a world champion …,” he said.
Though they do underplay their prowess, the Chinese paddlers are fiercely proud of their staggering superiority over the rest of the world. Contrary to the Western world’s assumption, the Chinese have a great sense of humour. Maybe, they don’t get it, since most of the time the joke is on them.
China’s Ma Long, with his teammate Wang Chuqin, plays against Sweden’s Anton Kallberg and Kristian Karlsson during the men’s gold medal team table tennis match at the 2024 Paris Olympics (AP)
In a rare long monologue that Ma Long did for TV, even on stage he had a paddle in his hand, the down-to-earth star did take a dig at what he calls ‘foreigners’. “Some creative foreign netizens have redefined table tennis’s difficulty levels as simple, normal, difficult, harder and Chinese table tennis. I want to refute them but on second thoughts my strength doesn’t allow me to refute them … of course, this is a joke,” he says with a naughty smile. No, it wasn’t a joke. Ma Long and Chinese table tennis are the game’s ultimate pinnacle.
Go to youtube and check out some Ma Long videos. He is an old-school player who has a relatively passive backhand and banks on forehand to attack. His rasping top-spin drive where he goes low like very few and lets his hand go up in a frantic arc is a sight to behold. His sudden backhand “flipping flick” with a fake push action foxes opponents and makes the experts shake their head in disbelief.
To be objective, the Olympics didn’t give a fitting farewell to its greatest champion. At his last Games, the unpretentious great didn’t become the story. It seems Paris was way too busy talking about a silver-haired pistol guy who shot with a hand in pocket, a break dancer who was so bad that she went viral and a gold medal winning boxer’s gender. With sporting skills becoming increasingly unimportant for the audience, the Chinese champ was leaving the grand stage at the right time. So Long, Ma Long.
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