In today's Chinese sports world, the national table tennis team undoubtedly stands as the most prominent presence. However, accompanying this prominence are controversies that have been brewing. As the ancient saying goes, "Blessings may hide misfortunes, and misfortunes may harbor blessings." The immense attention on the national table tennis team has brought glory but also spawned numerous troubles, particularly in the erosion caused by fan culture.
Since Fan Zhendong's opposition to the WTT's overbearing clauses at the end of last year, the national table tennis team and WTT have been embroiled in a whirlpool of public opinion. Subsequent developments have further plunged the national table tennis team into the mire of fan culture chaos. On January 14th, the General Administration of Sport made it an urgent task to govern the chaos of fan culture, with the Chinese Table Tennis Association being the only association required to participate in the discussion. This fact undoubtedly sounded the alarm for the national table tennis team, making their situation particularly awkward when compared to the success of other associations in delineating boundaries between athletes and fans. Taking Wang Chuqin as an example, his situation within fan culture is simply out of control. Even when his calligraphy of the character "Fu" was ridiculed, his fans would go to great lengths to defend him, finding far-fetched reasons such as claiming it was modeled after Ouyang Xun's work. This irrational behavior of defending him is a typical characteristic of fan culture.
Looking back at the Tokyo Olympic cycle, the phenomenon of fan culture in Chinese table tennis has become increasingly rampant. Fan Zhendong is a typical victim of this trend, suffering greatly under the impact of this unhealthy trend, even to the point of being chased by fans to his hotel, leading to a theft incident. However, the Table Tennis Association appeared quite powerless in dealing with this matter, merely criticizing fan culture symbolically without deeply reflecting on its own issues.
Liu Guoliang has been dedicated to promoting the development of players like Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, pushing the table tennis industry to new heights. However, to some extent, this seems to be subtly linked to fan culture. Is he willing to let the players he has meticulously cultivated completely sever ties with fan culture? This is undoubtedly a question worth deep consideration.
During a recent event Fan Zhendong participated in, his remarks on how to balance the relationship between teammates and opponents stirred up a storm. When mentioning the Olympic events, he pointed out that in singles competitions, everyone is in different halves of the draw, needing to win in their respective halves before they can meet, and in the finals, they strive for their dreams individually.
This is undoubtedly a provocation for Wang Chuqin. After all, in the Paris Olympics, he replaced Ma Long to form a male doubles star with Fan Zhendong, but ended up with an embarrassing outcome, only reaching the round of 32, which became the worst result in the history of the national table tennis team's singles in the past 20 years. Even if some people tried to attribute it to the racket issue, Wang Chuqin himself admitted that it was due to his insufficient abilities. Yet his fans still blindly defended him, creating a stark contrast with his actual performance.
The glorious achievements of Ma Long and Fan Zhendong meeting in the Olympic final highlight the current gap with Wang Chuqin. Such a gap has brought tremendous psychological pressure to Wang Chuqin, causing him to constantly break new lows in matches after the Paris Olympics. For the overall national table tennis team, Wang Chuqin's state is not conducive to the team's long-term development.
To truly change this situation, Wang Chuqin must deeply reflect, much like King Goujian of Yue sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall. He needs to work hard in daily training to improve his technical level and overcome shadows psychologically. At the same time, the Table Tennis Association should actively take measures to govern the chaos of fan culture, guide players to correctly handle their relationships with fans, and fundamentally solve the problems faced by the national table tennis team. As China's ace sports team, the national table tennis team can only maintain strong competitiveness in future international events by breaking free from the drawbacks of fan culture chaos.
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