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China Virtually Nails Women's Singles Gold, Official
The Olympic women's singles contention will be a Chinese show, a top Chinese table tennis official said Thursday.
Zhang Xielin, former world champion and now vice chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, said China is an odds-on favorite for the women's singles crown.
"We have top two seeds in Wang Nan and Li Ju and No. 4 seed Sun Jin," said Zhang. "We can hardly find an excuse if we let go the singles title."
Wang Nan and Li Ju are also favored for the women's doubles title.
"China face challenge from South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Singapore in women's doubles," Zhang said. "I think Wang and Li are the strongest duo in the field."
China swept all gold and three silver medals in Atlanta four years ago and they may do it again in Sydney.
In every event apart from men's singles, they send the top two seeds, the pattern only broken by the failure of the current men's world No. 1 Wang Liqin to qualify.
Wang missed the Olympic singles boat after he failed at an Olympic qualifying tournament to take the third spot allocated to each nation.
In his absence from the men's singles, the favorite is Kong Linghui, his compatriot and world champion in 1995. There could still be an all-Chinese final with the defending Olympic champion, Liu Guoliang, seeded third.
Kong and Liu are also tipped for the men's doubles gold.
Chinese head coach Cai Zhenhua kept low key, saying "the Chinese will win two gold medals in a normal case."
"Hopefully we will win three gold medals," Cai added.
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