Scandals Overshadow China’s Global Domination of Table Tennis

Jike Zhang of China competes during Men Single 1. Round at Table Tennis World Championship at Messe Duesseldorf in Dusseldorf, Germany on May 31, 2017. Maja Hitij/Bongarts/Getty Images

Table tennis, known as the “national sport” in China, has been dominated globally by Chinese athletes for over two decades, but various scandals have overshadowed the honor.

One example was how retired table tennis prodigy Zhang Jike used his girlfriend’s intimate videos to pay gambling debts.

On March 31, Li Wei’ao, a reporter for The Economic Observer in China, revealed details of how the former Chinese table tennis champion leaked his girlfriend’s videos.

Court filings show that three videos and one screenshot were leaked. Zhang admitted that he leaked the videos to pay for about 1 million yuan (approx. $145,100) out of his total debt of 5 million yuan (approx. $725,300). The reporter Li stressed that this was not just celebrity gossip but an ongoing criminal case.

Born in 1988, Zhang joined the Chinese national team at the age of 14 in 2002 and won the World Youth Championship that same year. In October 2004, the then 16-year-old Zhang was downgraded to the provincial team for allegedly borrowing another table tennis player’s debit card for gambling purposes.

In November 2006, Zhang rejoined the national team. He then became the third Grand Slam player in the national team in just 427 days, a record that no one has been able to break.

According to the Chinese sports wealth list published by Sports Weekly, Zhang ranked second in 2016 with 60 million yuan ($8.6 million) in income.

China's Zhang Jike, left, is counseled by his coach Liu Guoliang after losing a game in the men's team semi-final table tennis match against South Korea at the Riocentro venue during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 15, 2016. Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images

On April 4, 2023, the General Administration of Sports of China cut ties with Zhang, saying that no reports had been received at the time about Zhang’s rumored trips to casinos while competing abroad. The provincial sports authorities said that Zhang was no longer an active athlete and had no management responsibility for him.

Match-Fixing Scandal

Recently, Sportradar, the multinational corporation that analyzes sports data for bookmakers, released data showing that 62 matches in the 2022 World Team Table Tennis Championships (WTT) were suspected of match-fixing.

Since table tennis is a Chinese national sport and China has almost a monopoly on international tournaments, Chinese athletes were implicated in the match-fixing. The match-fixing allegations have brought significant scrutiny to the Chinese Table Tennis Association president, Liu Guoliang.

On April 4, Liu was detained during an investigation into whether he was involved in any match-fixing. On April 6, Liu was re-elected as the 10th Chinese Table Tennis Association President. The Chinese media explained that Liu was investigated not because of the Zhang Jike incident but because of the match-fixing. Liu’s re-election supposedly showed that he was not a part of the scandal.

Liu Guoliang, president of the Chinese table tennis association (CTTA) attends the Women's Singles final on day four of the WTT Cup Finals Xinxiang 2022 in Henan Province, China, on Oct. 30, 2022. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Gambling Addictions Not Uncommon 

Gambling scandals are not uncommon in the world of Chinese table tennis. In addition to Zhang Jike, in 2017, Kong Linghui, once known as the prince of Chinese table tennis, was sued by a Singaporean casino in the Hong Kong High Court for more than HK$2 million ($254,800) in gambling debts.

The General Administration of Sports of China confirmed the incident in a press conference and decided to suspend Kong from his job as head coach of the Chinese women’s game and asked him to return to China immediately to assist with investigations.

Playing For Other Countries

In March, a Chinese website published an article claiming that several of the past national champions were “traitors” who naturalized in other countries with the common goal of beating the Chinese team. However, the article did not mention the reasons behind these former champions’ choice to leave the Chinese team.

For example, Li Huifen, Jiao Zhimin, and Chen Jing, who represented China at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, all made it to the semi-finals. However, Jiao Zhimin was ordered by the Chinese team managers to let Li Huifen win, while Chen Jing defeated her Czechoslavian opponent to reach the final.

Then, the Chinese team managers decided to hand the championship to Li, but Chen refused to comply and eventually beat her teammate Li to win the championship, becoming China’s first Olympic gold medalist in women’s singles table tennis.

After the Seoul Olympics, Chen Jing shocked China by quitting the national team at the age of 20. When she played for Taiwan five years later, it became clear that she had offended the managers and was forced to leave the Chinese team in the first place. Chen’s teammates Li Huifen and Jiao Zhimin, who won medals at the Seoul Olympics, also left the national team a  year after the Olympics.

Another example was He Zhili. In the early years of women’s table tennis in China, He Zhili won many championships. However, she once refused the manager’s order to lose to her teammate Guan Jianhua at a World Championship and won the championship with a 3:0 victory over Guan Jianhua. After the incident, her superiors within the Chinese team were furious and disqualified her from future tournaments.

This incident led to He Zhili quitting the Chinese team in 1989 and moving to Japan, where she became a Japanese citizen and changed her name to Chire Koyama. Some Chinese considered her a traitor after her celebrations when beating Chinese player Deng Yaping.