On Tuesday (30 July) at the Paris Olympics, Chinese table tennis player Wang Chuqin (name transliterated from Chinese) and his partner Sun Yingsha (name transliterated from Chinese) won 4-2 against the North Korean team during the table tennis mixed doubles final.
The win meant the pair secured a gold medal for the Chinese table tennis team — Wang’s first Olympic gold medal, to boot.
However, a minor accident occurred after the match, which marred their victory.
While Wang — the world’s top-ranked player in men’s singles — and Sun were raising their national flag, a group of journalists rushed to take photos of the pair.
Amid the chaos, one of the photographers accidentally stepped on and broke Wang’s racquet, which had been placed on the suitcase that was on the ground behind the stadium hoardings, according to HK01.
One video posted by 行摄赣鄱 showed his coach, Xiao Zhan, walking around the stadium hoardings to check on his belongings and discovering the racquet, which had been bent out of shape from the stampede.
Source: 行摄赣鄱 on Douyin
After finding out that his racquet had been broken, the 24-year-old Wang became furious in front of the journalists.
His anger was caught on multiple videos now circulating on Douyin. One caught Wang yelling.
“Can’t we report this?” he asked his coach, visibly frustrated.
Another footage shared by 桃桃爱吃巧乐兹 showed his coach approaching him and holding his arms as he tried to calm the athlete down.
Later, Wang said during an interview that he had lost control of his emotions, reported the South China Morning Post.
While he understood that the action had not been intentional, he felt that such a situation should not have happened, HK01 reported.
He also shared that he felt helpless when he found out that his racquet had been broken, with no means to fix it.
“The incident happened, and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s just fate. I can still compete with a spare racket,” he said during the interview.
Many people from China were upset about the incident, blaming the photographer for being careless.
Some were worried about how this might affect upcoming competitions.
One user commented changing a racquet would have an impact on him in subsequent games.
Source: 环球网 on Douyin
However, HK01 noted that Wang had broken his bats intentionally before — he had once thrown his bat after a win. On another occasion, he smashed it after losing a match.
Also read: China-born table tennis player to make her Olympics debut at 58, will represent Chile
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Featured image adapted from 杜黝黝 on Douyin and 北丐故事会 on Douyin.
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