Tokyo 2020 Olympics – Table Tennis – Men’s Team – Bronze medal match – Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium – Tokyo, Japan – August 6, 2021. Jun Mizutani of Japan, Koki Niwa of Japan, Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan and coach Yosuke Kurashima of Japan celebrate winning bronze REUTERS/Thomas Peter
August 6, 2021
By Eimi Yamamitsu
TOKYO (Reuters) -China’s men took team gold on Friday, brushing Germany aside 3-0 in the final to put the seal on a dominant Olympic table tennis campaign.
Up against the world’s top three paddlers in Fan Zhendong, Ma Long and Xu Xin, the German team were always facing an uphill struggle, and China’s Xu and Ma steamrollered their opponents 3-0 in the opening doubles match.
But world number seven Dimitrij Ovtcharov then fought hard to try to turn the tables against world number one Fan, eventually going down 2-3.
World number two Ma then sealed victory by beating Timo Boll 11-5 11-9 11-13 11-7, to give China their fourth gold in the sport’s five events at Tokyo 2020.
Ma pumped his fist and let out a triumphant yell after winning the decisive game.
“I felt responsibilities participating in a sport event like the Olympics, but I was able to concentrate on the matches with all my strength,” he said after the match.
The only event China failed to win was the newly introduced mixed doubles, in which Japan took gold.
The host nation earlier clinched men’s team bronze with a 3-1 win over South Korea that included a singles victory for 18-year-old world number four Tomokazu Harimoto.
Harimoto, born in Japan’s Sendai, which was hit by a major earthquake and tsunami in 2011, said he dreamt of earning a medal ever since Sendai native Ai Fukuhara visited his elementary school to show the silver she won in London in 2012 in the women’s team event.
“To think that it’s my turn to be bringing back the medal to my hometown, it means so much to me,” he said.
(Reporting by Eimi Yamamitsu; Editing by Himani Sarkar and John Stonestreet)
