CHINA’S Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha took gold in the table tennis mixed doubles final at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday, beating Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong of DPR Korea 4-2.

This is the first gold medal for the Chinese table tennis team at the 2024 Olympics. It is also the first mixed doubles gold medal in the history of Chinese table tennis at the Olympics.

“Winning was not easy, but we did it!” Wang said after the match. Sun added, “We both performed very well today. There were ups and downs during the match, but we held on.”

Sun is a Table Tennis Club (SZU Club) member at Shenzhen University. The SZU Club was established in 2016. At its inception, the club extended an olive branch to Sun, who was then just 15 years old and had yet to make her mark in professional competitions as a young player in the national second team. Along with other young table tennis players such as Chen Meng, Qian Tianyi, He Zhuojia, and Wang Yidi, they formed the club’s first women’s team.

With her talent and hard work, Sun rapidly developed her skills and became highly competitive. She led the SZU Club to win the women’s team championship in the Chinese Table Tennis Super League in the 2020 and 2023 seasons.

In 2021, Sun won the silver medal in the women’s singles and the gold medal in the women’s team event at the Tokyo Olympics. She also secured her first World Cup women’s singles title this year.

(Liu Yangyang)