Olympic spotlight: Chen Meng Eyes Gold

(Steve Hopkins, photo: ITTFWorld)

Chen Meng is currently at the forefront of ITTF investment and is not close. China’s top player has 11,850 points and the next closest player, Japan’s Mima Ito, is nearly 1,400 points behind. Chen is the top seed of the Olympics and will become a solid favorite. According to a feature on Olympics.com (see original here), he first became a well-known commodity in China when he won the World Championships Guo Yue at the age of 17 in the Chinese team trials at the 2011 World Championships. In the same year, he dominated youth titles in doubles, doubles, and mixed doubles.

Chen reached number one in the world in 2018 and has been the most consistent player in the most dominant country, but this is his first Olympics. She won both the Women’s World Championships and the ITTF Grand Final last November, so maybe she’s on the roll. Before 2020, however, it looks like he lost key points in the biggest tournaments and fell short – lost in the finals or semi-finals (usually for another Chinese player). It makes things interesting because Singles Japan’s Mima Ito and China’s Sun Yingsha both get their eyes on the gold medal as well.

Chen also anchored the hugely favored Chinese team with 3 of the world’s 4 best players – a team so popular that in almost every match they could suffer from two disruptions and still win in the best 3/5 format.

Expected to see Chen Meng downtown podium next month in Tokyo. The real question is not necessarily whether he will take the gold home, but how many gold medals he can claim.

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