Paris 2024 Olympic Games – Table Tennis – Mixed Doubles Gold Medal Match 1st Item – South Paris Arena 4, Paris, France – July 30, 2024. China's Chuqin Wang and China's Yingsha Sun in action during their match against Jong Sik Ri North Korea and North Korea's Kim Yong Kim. Reuters/Kim Hongji
[1/2]Paris 2024 Olympic Games – Table Tennis – Mixed Doubles Gold Medal Match – South Paris Arena 4, Paris, France – July 30, 2024. China's Wang Chung-geum and Son Yong-sa in action during the match between North Korea's Jong Sik-kuri and Kim. North Korea's Yong Kim. Reuters/Kim Hongji buys license rights, opens in new tab
PARIS, July 30 (Reuters) – China's Wang Qiuqin and Sun Yingsha defeated North Korea's Ri Jong-sik and Kim Geum-young 4-2 in the table tennis mixed doubles final at the Paris Games on Tuesday, underscoring China's potential. It was the first step. A total of gold medals in the sports world.
The victory was also the first gold medal for 24-year-old Wang and 23-year-old Son, and many fans who traveled to France turned out to cheer them on. This is also a moment of redemption for the Chinese Table Tennis Dream Team, which has won 33 out of 38 gold medals since table tennis was introduced in the Summer Olympics in 1988, but this will be the first mixed match at the Tokyo Olympics. He missed out on the doubles gold medal.
“I think both teams performed very well in today’s final. I am very grateful to all the teams from the past three years for making it this far despite losing in the mixed doubles at the Tokyo Olympics. ” said Sun.
North Korea's Ri Jong-sik and Kim Geum-young returned to the Olympics after not participating in the Tokyo Olympics and won silver medals. Meanwhile, South Korea's Lim Jeong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin defeated Hong Kong's Wong Chun-ting and Du Hui-kem 4-0 to win the bronze medal.
Unbeknownst to their rivals, Li and Kim, both first-time Olympians, said little about their journey from qualifying to winning silver in mixed doubles.
Kim said, “We have prepared a lot for the Olympics. We have been working with the Chinese team, which is the best in the world.Of course, we weren't good enough at the end.We had a good performance, but I have some regrets.'' .
China's world No. 1 pair, Son and Wang, dominated from the start, winning the first game 11-6, and North Korea won the second game 11-7. However, China then turned around and extended their lead to 3-1.
North Korea fought back again to make it 3-2, and the match reached its climax in the sixth game, with a fierce rally and an 8-8 lead. However, in the end they conceded a game point and China had a chance to win 11-8.
South Korea had the upper hand in the bronze medal match, but in the fourth game, which seemed like an easy victory, the Hong Kong team showed tenacity and at one point had a one-point lead, but fell short in the end and lost 14-12.
Former Chinese great Deng Yaping, who won four Olympic gold medals, was also in attendance to cheer on the Chinese team.
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Reporting by Crystal Hu; Editing by Ken Ferris and Hugh Lawson
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