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Olympic Games 2008
Men - Who Qualified?
Which men qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games? Were all the best players there? Find out here...
By Martin Hughes
Owner and Editor
The Olympic Games were held in Beijing in the People's Republic of China from 8 to 24 August 2008 and we saw some fabulous table tennis.
Although the opening ceremony took place on 8 August 2008, the table tennis didn't actually start until Wednesday 13 August 2008.
A fabulous new state-of-the-art venue had been built at Peking University specifically for this event - so the players had the best possible conditions in which to play.
It had seating for 8,000 spectators - with 6,000 seats being permanent and 2,000 temporary.
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But...
Were all the best players there?
Unfortunately, because each National Olympic Committee (NOC) could only have a maximum of three men and three women competing, some of the stronger nations like China had several players who, despite being in the top 20 of the World Ranking list, were not at the Olympics.
However, this meant that the rivalry between the various nationalities was more intense, and provided us with some excellent matches.
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So...
How did the players qualify?
There was a complicated system of qualification for the Olympic table tennis event, but without getting too bogged down with the full details, here's a brief summary...
Singles Events
For each of the singles events, 64 table tennis players qualified for the Olympic Games as follows:
- The top 20 players on the ITTF World Ranking list as at 3 January 2008 (with a maximum of two players per NOC)
- 40 players who qualified via continental qualification events held between July 2007 and April 2008 (Africa 6, Asia 11, Europe 11, Latin America 6, North America 3 and Oceania 3)
- One player by invitation of the IOC/ANOC/ITTF
- The top three players at the Final World Qualification Tournament who had not already qualified
The number of qualification places for the Singles events from the Final World Qualification Tournament could be increased if...
- the continental allocation of 40 players was not reached
- the host nation direct entry place was not used and/or
- the Team Quota of 22 places was not fully utilised
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So, which players actually qualified...
Players who qualified for the Olympic Games 2008
| Player (Men) | NOC | |
|
Directly qualified by World Ranking (20)
|
||
| 1 | WANG Hao | CHN |
| 2 | MA Lin | CHN |
| 3 | BOLL Timo | GER |
| 4 | SAMSONOV Vladimir | BLR |
| 5 | RYU Seung Min | KOR |
| 6 | OH Sang Eun | KOR |
| 7 | GAO Ning | SIN |
| 8 | LI Ching | HKG |
| 9 | CHUAN Chih-Yuan | TPE |
| 10 | KREANGA Kalinikos | GRE |
| 11 | SCHLAGER Werner | AUT |
| 12 | KAN Yo | JPN |
| 13 | OVTCHAROV Dimitrij | GER |
| 14 | SMIRNOV Alexei | RUS |
| 15 | YANG Zi | SIN |
| 16 | KO Lai Chak | HKG |
| 17 | PRIMORAC Zoran | CRO |
| 18 | MAZE Michael | DEN |
| 19 | HE Zhi Wen | ESP |
| 20 | PERSSON Jorgen | SWE |
|
African Qualification Tournament (6)
|
||
| 1 | TORIOLA Segun | NGR |
| 2 | MEROTOHUN Monday | NGR |
| 3 | LASHIN El-Sayed | EGY |
| 4 | SAKA Suraju | CGO |
| 5 | KHOURTA Idir | ALG |
| 6 | MASSAAD Adel | EGY |
|
Latin America Qualification Tournament (6)
|
||
| 1 | LIN Ju | DOM |
| 2 | LIU Song | ARG |
| 3 | TSUBOI Gustavo | BRA |
| 4 | MONTEIRO Thiago | BRA |
| 5 | ST LOUIS Dexter | TRI |
| 6 | TABACHNIK Pablo | ARG |
|
Asia Qualification Tournament (11)
|
||
| 1 | NOROUZI Afshin | IRI |
| 2 | DOAN Kien Quoc | VIE |
| 3 | AL-HASAN Ibrahim | KUW |
| 4 | WANG Liqin | CHN |
| 5 | KIM Hyok Bong | PRK |
| 6 | RI Chol Guk | PRK |
| 7 | MIZUTANI Jun | JPN |
| 8 | YOON Jae Young | KOR |
| 9 | KISHIKAWA Seiya | JPN |
| 10 | JANG Song Man | PRK |
| 11 | ACHANTA Sharath Kamal | IND |
|
Europe Qualification Tournament (11)
|
||
| 1 | TAN Ruiwu | CRO |
| 2 | LUNDQVIST Jens | SWE |
| 3 | TOKIC Bojan | SVN |
| 4 | GARDOS Robert | AUT |
| 5 | SÜSS Christian | GER |
| 6 | CHEN Weixing | AUT |
| 7 | GIONIS Panagiotis | GRE |
| 8 | MONTEIRO Joao | POR |
| 9 | CHILA Patrick | FRA |
| 10 | LEGOUT Christophe | FRA |
| 11 | KUZMIN Fedor | RUS |
|
North America Qualification Tournament (3)
|
||
| 1 | ZHANG Peng | CAN |
| 2 | PETER-PAUL Pradeeban | CAN |
| 3 | ZHUANG David | USA |
|
Oceania Qualification Tournament (3)
|
||
| 1 | HENZEL William | AUS |
| 2 | DAVIS Kyle | AUS |
| 3 | ZALCBERG David | AUS |
|
Invitation (1)
|
||
| 1 | AGUIRRE Marcelo | PAR |
|
Final Qualification Tournament (3)
|
||
| 1 | SAIVE Jean-Michel | BEL |
| 2 | CHEUNG Yuk | TUR |
| 3 | CHIANG Peng-Lung | TPE |
|
Additional Singles Qualifiers
|
||
| 1 | CRISAN Adrian | ROU |
| 2 | ALI SALEH Ahmed | EGY |
| 3 | ZENG Cem | TUR |
| 4 | ELOI Damien | FRA |
| 5 | FREITAS Marcos | POR |
| 6 | JAKAB Janos | HUN |
| 7 | KARAKASEVIC Aleksandar | SRB |
| 8 | BOBOCICA Mihai | ITA |
| 9 | KOU Lei | UKR |
| 10 | KORBEL Petr | CZE |
| 11 | APOLONIA Tiago | POR |
| 12 | CARNEROS Alfredo | ESP |
| 13 | BLASZCZYK Lucjan | POL |
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