ACOG - News - IBM

(30 July 1996; Day 11)

China Takes Gold and Silver in Men's Table Tennis Doubles

China's KONG Linghui and LIU Guoliang surprised teammates LU Lin and WANG Tao, 1992 Olympic men's doubles gold medalists, in today's gold medal match.

"It is very surprising that we won," said KONG, 20. "We're both very young. This is the highest competition in the whole game. So, we are very surprised and happy with the win."

Playing against teammates in the gold medal match is no different than playing any other opponent, according to KONG.

"In the competition, whether against someone from my own country or someone from another team, we're going to try our best to win," said KONG. Since both pairs have the same coach, the players "coached" themselves during the match.

"Because we all get along very well with each other, the coach didn't give us any instruction about how to play. We just went out and played ourselves," said LU.

At a press conference following the gold medal match, LU announced his retirement from table tennis. Ranked 24th in the world, LU, 27, has been a member of the national team for nine years. He has partnered in doubles with WANG since 1990.

"I am quitting after this," said LU. "The only regretful thing is that this may well be my last competition with WANG and we didn't get the gold."

"WANG may continue to play," he added. "But, I feel that I'm not as good as before. So I won't be representing China anymore. I'll still participate in smaller games and tournaments. We first started out with smaller tournaments and we worked on coordination. Since then we've been through many other tournaments together. I'll miss it."

This is an official publication of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Sports Publications Department. Written by Kim Chaudoin.


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More tickets were sold to the competitions of the 1996 Games than to any other Olympic Games or sports event in history. The 8.6 million ticket sales figures topped sales to the Los Angeles and Barcelona Games combined.