European Olympic Singles Qualification | 18 Jun 2014

Senior World #3 selected for Youth Olympic Games

Senior world number three and member of the Chinese team that won the 2014 World Championships, FAN Zhendong (CHN) has been selected as China’s representative for the upcoming Youth Olympic Games Table Tennis event in Nanjing, China. 17-year-old FAN

Senior world number three and member of the Chinese team that won the 2014 World Championships, FAN Zhendong (CHN) has been selected as China’s representative for the upcoming Youth Olympic Games Table Tennis event in Nanjing, China.

17-year-old FAN Zhendong, who shot to stardom last year by winning the German and Polish Opens as a 16-year-old, which at the time was the youngest ever winner of a World Tour event, will be one of the 32 boys and 32 girls competing for gold at the second Youth Olympic Games. China had the luxury of having an automatic position at Nanjing as Host Nation, but this was not the case for the rest of the world’s best table tennis players born between 1996-1999.

They had to battle through 12 months of tough qualification, which started in Egypt and cumulated in the Cook Islands last week to secure their golden ticket to Nanjing.

The 32 boys and 32 girls players that will line up at Nanjing 2014 after qualifying through various methods are:

Four players per gender from the 2013 Road to Nanjing Series Finals. 16 players (one from each NOC) qualified for the 2013 Road to Nanjing Series Finals, who collected the most points at the six tournaments on the series (one event in each continent). The three top ranked under-18 players per gender that did not qualify from the above tournaments and registered participation in the 2013 Road to Nanjing.

14 players per gender from the continental qualification events.

One player per gender from each of six qualification events, one held in each continent, open to all the players who had not yet qualified.

Four players per gender from universality places (NOC’s decided with athletes confirmed mid-June) One player per gender from the host country (China) A significant number of the qualified players are currently at the Road to Nanjing Training Camp being held in Shanghai, China. The camp, which is being organized by the ITTF in conjunction with the Chinese Table Tennis Association, has the world’s best coaches on hand to get the players ready for the showpiece event.

The players that qualified for the Nanjing 2014 will fight it out for 3 gold medals: boys’ singles, girls’ singles and the mixed teams event, which consists of one boy and one girl who have qualified for the singles event. Teams can be composed of players from different NOCs where only boy or girl qualified in singles.

Check out the full list of qualified players here: http://bit.ly/UyXGSG.

Find out more about the training camp which is being funded by ITTF’s Dream Building program and Olympic Solidarity, by watching this documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIEZNjMKN3M.