Translated from the article 《打造乒乓新纪元》, the Table Tennis World magazine, 02/2010 Issue
Year 2009 has passed. On reflection, the one word that could summarize our work in the past year is ‘new’. With the mandate of ‘new task, new starting point, new challenge and new practice’, we broke the pattern of steady development in the ‘adjustment year’ after the Olympics.
Fine-tune new talents and set up rosters for London Olympics team
Our main squad for the 2008 Olympic game was at its best form. Three elite players all reached high perfection in both technical and tactical aspects and their mental status were developed to a mature stage. All three were competent enough to take the crown. By and large we had the confidence going into and throughout the games. Whereas currently our team does not look too optimistic, with conditions similar to that of 2004 or even more difficult. In 2004, our three main players were among the top in the world, in terms of both competition results and world ranking. However, neither the players nor the coaches felt certain when the time had come for the battle. Because we were not mature and stable at the time, the result of being defeated was not accidental.
In order to maintain our edge in the London games, roster formation is especially important. Currently, our eight main players take a firm position in the (national) team. They were constantly ranked top eight throughout competitions in 2009. Therefore, how to select players for the Olympic team is a tough question.
Wang Hao and Ma Long, at a fitted age and with advanced playing style, form the core of the team at the moment. How to make sure they can keep the lead and succeed in making to the London Olympic team with their best form is essential to the stability of the team. Hence, work concerning them is the top priority in our team. Ma Lin and Wang Liqin, persistent all the way and to date have maintained high quality of play; they are the precious treasure of our team. It is admirable that they can still be motivated and take up posts through competition. However, limited by physical strength and playing style, it is hard to say if one of them can be selected by then. Among the rest four players, Xu Xin and Zhang Jike are young and highly motivated, showing a positive trend of development recently; but it’s still too early to prove anything. Chen Qi and Hao Shuai, with hovering results for many years, will not want to give up the opportunity to fight either. We will continue to implement the mechanism of competition and form the best line-up through competition. By special training and cultivation, we will make sure that there will be two or more talents ready-to-use rising out of them.
It would be an irony to our work of these four years if we kept the same roaster for London Olympic as what we did in 2008. However, despite the fact that young elites are on the rise, they lack the experiences in big events and can hardly reach the state of Ma Lin, Wang Liqin and Wang Hao’s. Young players can participate at the events as they wish through competition, but seem less capable as they wished at critical moments in major competitions. This group of young players are still in the stage of development and formation, not yet in the ideal cycle for use. Therefore, to enhance training and increase opportunity for them to experience is the only feasible way to shorten the length of their development phase.
Based on previous pattern and experience, young players, without experience of participating in big international events for a few times, will not meet the expectations going straight to the Olympics for the first time. Now, we are three year away from the London Olympics, in between there are two times of world team events and one singles event, a very few opportunities of big events for practice. How to nurture new talents through these limited opportunities and assign them major roles to play is an important issue faced by us. That’s why in the latter half of 2009, men’s coach team have used young players extensively.
Boldly trying out emerging young players will indeed bring vitality and vigour to the team. After a few stops of pro tours, our decisions proved to be right. Through competition, young players as main squad continually gain experiences, hone their skills and enhance real-game ability evidently. For young players, losing is also a form of gaining. Ma Long and Chen Qi, lost in the World Cup and didn’t play well in a number of other important games. Particularly, Ma Long, as the backbone for London preparation team, was well anticipated and assigned a major role to play in the games. But out of everyone’s expectation, he lost in two key battles. This means that Ma Long has not yet crossed the threshold in stress management and mental adjustment. We should take this as a lesson and redesign a brand new program to breakthrough.
Field experience is the best way to facilitate growth, however if players only focus their attention on tournaments, they won’t be able to maintain good forms and it will even create negative impact on their performance in the future. Seizing the opportunity and intensifying experience training are certainly underpinning for young elite players to grow fast and set a firm foothold, but how to do an overall arrangement with right timing is more essential to the formation of the London team.
(this translation exercise is only part of the article ‘da zao ping pang xin ji yuan’ from Table Tennis World 02/2010 Issue, which was a selection and adaptation from Liu Guoliang’s 2009 work report)
I am a freelance interpreter and translator between English and Chinese based in Toronto, Canada. 
