Olympic Direct Qualification
Sweden’s Jörgen Persson Qualified for
the Sixth Time
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
|
"Source:
ITTF Press Release