Daily Times

RIO DE JANEIRO: China’s Ding Ning won the women’s Olympic table tennis title on Wednesday, beating her team boss Li Xiaoxia to avenge the bitter defeat she suffered to her compatriot in London 2012. Four years after losing the title in acrimonious circumstances when she became embroiled in a row with the referee, Ding, nicknamed ‘big baby’, finally won the gold she had hankered after so dearly. The top seed prevailed in seven sets 11-9, 5-11, 14-12, 9-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7 to complete the grand slam of World Championship, World Cup and now Olympic titles. China have won every women’s singles title since table tennis was introduced in Seoul in 1988, and are on course to complete a third successive cleansweep of golds after dominating in Beijing and London. “I’m a little dazed by this,” said the hugely popular and charismatic Ding.

Pals and rivals: “I was able to forget the sad memory of that defeat in London. In the four years since I’m more experienced and seasoned. “I feel like I am a lot more mature than four years ago and told myself before the final to ‘fight for my dreams’.” On her relationship with Li she added: “With Xiaoxia we are teammates, she’s the team leader, I’ve learned a lot from her, but today of course we were rivals.” In a mark of a magnanimous loser Li praised Ding for prising the title from her, adding: “As long as the ball doesn’t hit the floor, I continued to do my best.” Ding claimed the opening set in eight minutes against her friend-colleague-training partner and, for this encounter as she noted, arch rival, who took only seven minutes to bring the match back level. Left-hand attacker Ding, in bright pink, then scraped the third 14-12.

Li though, two years her elder, was not in the mood to relinquish her title without a battle, pocketing the fourth game. The balance of power swung Li’s way then as the third seed came out on top in a pulsating 25-stroke rally on her way to the fifth set. “Make some noise, there are one billion people watching this back in China,” encouraged the stadium announcer at the Riocentro complex. With her second tilt at the Olympic title slipping from her grasp Ding dug deep to take the sixth game 11-7 to send the final into a nerve-jangling decider. With concentration at its maximum, the 26-year-old hunched over the ball before her serve like a scientist over a microscope. At 10-7, she called a strategic time out, then, summoning on all her skill and guile, she returned to finally net the one that had got away. “I was crying when I knew it was done, it was from relief,” she said. “As for my goals? the first is to focus on helping the Chinese team win team gold!”

Earlier North Korea’s rising star Kim Song-I swept aside Japan’s fifth seed Ai Fukuhara 4-1 to take the bronze. Kim, on her 22nd birthday, had been despatched by Ding in the semi-finals on Wednesday morning, with Li accounting for Fukuhara. Kim’s defeat to Ding on her 22nd birthday was followed avidly by Choe Ryong-hae, a loyal lieutenant of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un.