Daily Times

From our Olympics correspondent – China continued its unrivalled supremacy in para table tennis on Friday night, taking away both of the first two gold medals in the women’s doubles. The doubles format, which returned to the Paralympics this year for the first time since 1976, has so far proved disappointing for the French contenders, with fan-favourites Fabien Lamirault and Julien Michaud taking home the bronze after being beaten 3-1 by South Korea in the men’s doubles semi-finals.

In some ways, para table tennis doubles feels like the Paralympic Games in microcosm. No two athletes at the table are living with the same disability – on one side of the net, a player will lash the racket to her wrist, pulling the strap tight with her teeth. On the other, an athlete will lean over the table to serve, her weight resting on a crutch.

Another player steadies the ball on the flat of his racket inches above the table’s matt-black surface, his other arm thrown out for balance, ending just below the elbow. With an almost imperceptible flick of his wrist, he sends the ball skidding across the net, and the game begins.

For the first time since 1976, para table tennis doubles is back in the Paralympic Games. Table tennis has been a core feature of the Paralympics since they first started in 1960 – it wouldn’t make its way into the Olympics until the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul.

Para table tennis is split into 11 classes. In one through five, athletes use wheelchairs; from six through to 11, they compete standing, some using prosthetic limbs, canes or crutches. Athletes with intellectual impairments compete in the 11th division. In doubles, not all partners are in the same class as one another, though they’re often close.