Liu Guoliang Shaves Head to Prepare for Olympic Games

Liu Guoliang: Shaving Head for Olympic Games

Liu Guoliang, the main force of Chinese ping-pong team, seems to have lost his game. Recently, he lost to Sweden's Jan-Ove Waldner and Zhu Shihe in succession. Yesterday, the night before the Chinese ping-pong team went to their training base to prepare for the Olympics Games, Liu Guoliang shaved his head to prepare himself for the Sydney Games.

Cai Zhenhua, the general director of Chinese ping-pong team, analyzed the reasons of Liu Guoliang's losses. The first reason was the uproar over "stimulant incident", which has lasted for half a year and affected Liu Guoliang's emotions, causing his mental state to drop from its peak. Although Liu was proved innocent in the end, it took a long time for him to recover from feeling down. Because of his emotional state, Liu Guoliang could not carry out the coach's orders during the match. The changes during the matches were less than in the past and his competitiveness declined.

Another important reason is European players and some Asian players increased their research on Liu Guoliang and other Chinese players since the 45th World Ping-Pong Games. They analyzed how Liu plays and his tactics thoroughly then adapted. This limited Liu Guoliang's game and technique to a certain extent.

Cai Zhenhua said, Liu Guoliang played well near the end of the recent Brazil Open and won the tournament. But this only is a beginning of his recovery, it's still too early to say his problems have been solved. During the closed training, the coach will help Liu Guoliang to analyze his problems and recover as soon as possible. There are only 50 days left until to the opening of the Olympic Games. Whether Liu Guoliang will get his game back in time for the Olympic Games depend on how he conducts himself.

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