Beijing Olympic Qualification

Monday, January 7, 2008

The ITTF January ranking is the basis for the nomination of twenty male and twenty female direct qualifiers for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Totally 64 men and 64 women will qualify for the Olympic main draw in their respective single events. Forty players each will qualify via Continental Qualification tournaments, one player each will be invited by the Tripartite Commission and three men and women will receive the “Olympic ticket” at the Final World Qualification Tournament to be held in Budapest, Hungary from 8th to 11th May 2008.

No Tie between Persson and Saive
The decision for the Men’s Singles event was very close. Sweden’s Jörgen Persson and Belgium’s Jean-Michel Saive both had 11957 points and were ex aequo on the twentieth place. In case of a so-called tie, Saive and Persson would have been obliged to play a match against each other for the direct qualification according to the recent decision in Palo Alto of the ITTF Olympic Committee.
A view on the detailed ranking however shows that Persson has 11957.50 and Saive only has 11957.25 points. There is no tie between the two players. Jean-Michel Saive can still qualify for the Olympic Games via the Continental or the Final World Qualification.

Sixth Qualification for European Legends
The first Olympic appearance of Table Tennis was in Seoul 1988. Croatia’s Zoran Primorac (38), Sweden’s Jörgen Persson (41), Belgium’s Jean-Michel Saive (38) and Germany’s Jörg Rosskopf (38) participated already five times. Beijing will be the sixth time for Primorac and Persson unless their respective National Olympic Committees do not select them.
Saive and Rosskopf on their part still have a way to go. Whilst Saive’s prospects are rather good, Rosskopf has hard concurrence within his country. Owing to the quota per National Olympic Committee only one more player beside Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov will represent Germany in Beijing. Bastian Steger and Christian Süss might become the spoilsports for Rosskopf.

The twenty direct qualifiers for the Men’s Singles event are:
WANG Hao, China; MA Lin, China; BOLL Timo, Germany; SAMSONOV Vladimir, Belarus; RYU Seung Min, Korea; OH Sang Eun, Korea; GAO Ning, Singapore; LI Ching, Hong Kong; CHUAN Chih-Yuan, Taipei; KREANGA Kalinikos, Greece; SCHLAGER Werner, Austria; KAN Yo, Japan; OVTCHAROV Dimitrij, Germany; SMIRNOV Alexei, Russia; YANG Zi, Singapore; KO Lai Chak, Hong Kong; PRIMORAC Zoran, Croatia; MAZE Michael, Denmark; HE Zhiwen, Spain; PERSSON Jorgen, Sweden.

Wosik and Dodean Qualified for the Singles Event
The fight for the twenty direct qualification places for the Women’s Singles event was a little less contested. The “last” qualifiers are Hungary’s Krisztina Toth, Romania’s Daniela Dodean and Germany’s Elke Wosik.

The twenty direct qualifiers for the Women’s Singles event are:
GUO Yue, China; ZHANG Yining, China; WANG Yue Gu, Singapore, JIANG Huajun **, Hong Kong; LI Jia Wei, Singapore; TIE Yana **, Hong Kong; FUKUHARA Ai, Japan, KIM Kyung Ah, Korea; WU Jia Duo, Germany; HIRANO Sayaka, Japan; LIU Jia, Austria; LI Jiao, Netherlands; GAO Jun, USA; PARK Mi Young, Korea; BOROS Tamara, Croatia; LI Qian, Poland; WANG Chen, USA; TOTH Krisztina, Hungary; DODEAN Daniela, Romania; WOSIK Elke, Germany.
** Eligibility to be confirmed

ITTF Press Release

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Beijing Olympic Qualification

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