(by Steve Hopkins)
On Tuesday, World No. 1 Wang Chuqin and his mixed doubles partner Sun Yingsha were on top of the world celebrating their Gold Medal. The aftermath of that win has led to one of the leading stories of the Games thus far. Apparently as the crowd of photographers pushed in to get a photo of the winners, one of them stepped on Wang Chuqin’s paddle and broke it. The paddle had been placed in his luggage in the player section of the venue, where normally only players and coaches come and go. However, in this moment, many others were in that space taking photos.
Accidents happen, and this is not the only piece of broken equipment (or even the only broken table tennis bat) in Paris thus far. However, this incident is amplified by it happening to the World’s No. 1 ranked player immediately after a Gold Medal performance.
This story took a turn today, when Wang Chuqin was upset in the Singles event. Wang Chuqin did not blame the broken racket for his loss to Sweden’s Truls Moregard. And clearly no one will ever know if things would have been different had Chuqin had access to the broken paddle. But within that 4-2 win for Moregard, were two games separated by just one point (a 12-10 first game victory for Moregard, and a fifth game 11-9 win).
And in regard to the reach of this story – a hashtag on Weibo referencing Chuqin’s broken paddle crossed 960 million views in its first 24 hours. The story is not likely to stop spreading any time soon after the early exit of the World’s best player. In a game of inches, filled with blurring speed, heavy angles, and dizzying spin – one could wonder if a paddle change affected the outcome.
Video posted by a fan on twitter in the aftermath of discovering the broken paddle- https://x.com/manyapan/status/1818671033827615225
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