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Triumph for The Great Wall Kong completes Chinese gold medal sweepLatest: Sunday October 01, 2000 06:16 AM
SYDNEY, Sept 25 (CNNSI.com) -- China's Kong Linghui defeated Sweden's Jan-Ove Waldner to win the gold medal in the men's singles of table tennis Monday. Kong beat Waldner 3-2 (21-16, 21-19, 17-21, 14-21, 21-13) as China won gold medals in all four table tennis events. The 1996 Atlanta doubles gold medalist was thrilled to have triumphed over Waldner, the 1992 Barcelona gold medallist. "I watched him on television when I was a child and admired his play greatly and wanted to emulate him," Kong said. "Now I've done it," he said. China matched their tally from Atlanta in Sydney to win four golds, three silver and one bronze, leaving Sweden with just a silver, and France, Korea and Taiwan with one bronze each. Kong, who won gold in the men's doubles at Atlanta in 1996, attributed China's success largely to their training system. "We are able to get more excellent athletes to play so we can train with different people," he said. "But it is still hard for us to win, as we can see today, and in the final points sometimes it still depends on luck." The 24-year-old who also won silver in the doubles at Sydney and is referred to as "The Great Wall of China" because the ball so often bounces back off his bat, looked set to trounce Waldner. But the Swede, who is ten years Kong's senior, fought back hard to equalize at 2-2. The tension fired up the packed and rowdy crowd of Chinese and Swedish fans, watched over by Sweden's King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia. But Kong steadied and took an early last game lead which he refused to surrender. Waldner was obviously disappointed not to have repeated his Barcelona victory, but was gracious in second place. "It was only one or two points that made the difference. Everyone wants the gold, and I just could not do it this time, but I still have to be happy with the silver medal." Earlier, Kong's doubles partner Liu Guoliang picked up the bronze medal after beating Waldner's compatriot Joergen Persson 21-18 19-21 21-14 21-13. Reuters contributed to this report.
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