The 2023 Durban World Table Tennis Championships has not yet started, Liu Guoliang and others have begun to plan ahead, in line with the 2024 Paris Olympics - Beijing time on May 15, the Chinese Table Tennis Association officially announced an important document, that is, the "Table Tennis Project 2024 Paris Olympic Games Selection Measures", the selection rules of each project were stipulated, and Liu Guoliang personally served as the leader of the selection leading group.
As we all know, for the Chinese table tennis team, the Olympic Games is the most important competition, so even the World Table Tennis Championships was called "middle school entrance examination" by Liu Guoliang after comparing the Olympic Games, so it is self-evident who is the "college entrance examination". Due to the postponement of the last Tokyo Olympics for a year, the time for teams to prepare for the Paris Olympics has been shortened from the past four years to three years, and how to select athletes in a shorter period of time has also become a focus of the work of the Chinese Table Tennis Association and coaching staff.
According to the latest selection method, there are three ways to qualify for the mixed doubles event, namely: (1) mixed doubles continental qualification (mixed doubles competition at the Asian Championships in September 2023), (2) mixed doubles world qualification (expected to be held in March~April 2024), and (3) mixed doubles world ranking on May 7, 2024 (week 19). But it is also clear that the highest-ranked team will participate in the Paris Olympics on May 7, 2024, and both athletes will be automatically selected for the men's and women's team teams of the Chinese team at the same time.
The competition in singles is more intense, the Table Tennis Association has established a selection principle similar to Japan's point system, and stipulates that "the Olympic singles selection points are the sum of the ITTF singles world ranking points and international competition award points", of which the top three singles in the World Championships, World Cup, Asian Games, Asian Championships, Asian Cup, and WTT Grand Slam, Finals, Championship singles can get corresponding points, and the winners of each singles match of the World Championships, World Cup, Asian Games, and Asian Championships team knockout competitions can also get points.
At present, it seems that Wang Chuqin/Sun Yingsha's mixed doubles advantage is very large, because the two have the most outstanding results and can balance singles and doubles, so many fans have almost defaulted to their inclusion in the Paris Olympic list. As for the singles situation, it is more complicated, it is generally felt that the women's team will be Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Chen Meng, and the men's team should focus on Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin and Ma Long. But now there is still a year before the start of the Olympic Games, let's sit and wait for the results of the World Table Tennis Championships to come out!