article by Nicola Pucci
Table tennis officially entered the Olympic program in 1988, in Seoul, featuring two competitions, singles and doubles, for both men and women. And curiously that first, historic five-circle edition celebrates two home triumphs, that of the two girls Hyun Jung-hwa and Yang Young-ja, who won the doubles tournament, and that of Yoo Nam-kyu, the first Olympic champion in the men’s singles.
Before giving details of the tournament which will take place from 23 September to 1 October Seoul National University Gymnasium and calls 64 athletes from 35 countries to the challenge, it is worth noting that the Seoul Games represent a sort of exception in the Olympic table tennis panorama, given that the two Korean gold medals make up a large part of the spoils that China, winner of 32 of the 37 competitions that have been played since those days Olympics, he “left” to his opponents. It may be a coincidence, but evidently the feeling of home in Korea seemed to be good for the Asian players.
The 64 players registered for the 1988 Seoul men’s singles tournament are placed in 8 groups of 8, with the athletes meeting each other in seven initial matches which qualify the top two in the next round, to be played with the direct elimination formula (tennis scoreboard aligned with the round of 16, so to speak). And the first phase holds no surprises, with the number 1 in the ranking, the Chinese Jiang Jialiang, world champion in both singles and teams in Gothenburg in 1985 and in New Delhi in 1987, who in Group A leaves only one set to the Hungarian Tibor Klampar, who in turn qualifiedinstead ousting the young Frenchman Jean-Philippe Gatien who four years later, in Barcelona, would star as a protagonist by winning the silver medal.
Swede Jan-Ove Waldner, number 2 seed and world champion runner-up in New Delhi, is equally unplayable in Group Balso adding seven victories and risking only against the Chinese Xu Zengcai, defeated 3-2 but second in the ranking, in the meantime the third Chinese of the lot, Chen Longcan number 3 in the draw and winner of the Wolrd Cup in 1986 in Port of Spain, gives way to the Austrian Ding Yi in Group C (of obvious Chinese birth, too), 3-1, guaranteeing passage to the round with a narrow victory against Lo Chuen Tsung, representative of Hong Kong.
In Group D, two well-known Europeans, the Polish Andrzej Grubba, advance as a pairwho won the World Cup in Guangzhou in June, beating Chen Longcan and Jiang Jialing, making him one of the potential great favorites of the Olympic tournament, and the 19-year-old Zoran Primorac, a talented product of a school with a great tradition like the Yugoslav one, second in doubles at the World Championships in New Delhi associated with Ilija Lupulesku, also present in Seoul and dominating Group H (in which the Italian Massimo Costantini also plays, eliminated with a record of 2 victories and 5 defeats), adding seven victories which they qualify him together with the Japanese Seiji Ono, someone who was able to become world champion in singles in 1979 in Pyongyang and eliminates not only the Korean Kim Wan by beating him 3-1 in a sort of play-off match, but above all the Soviet Andrei Mazunov, recent European vice-champion in Paris (defeated by the Swede Mikael Appelgren, absent in Seoul) and top seed number 1 in the group, causing the only real surprise of the first phase.
And if Group F is also dominated by two Europeans, the other Swede Erik Lindh who already boasts four European golds in doubles and team competitions and the British veteran Desmond Douglas who back in 1978 won a bronze in singles and a silver in the team competition at the European Championships in Duisburg, here two home tennis players take to the stage, Kim Ki-taik, who wins in Group E preceding the third Swede of the lot, Jorgen Persson who won the continental event in Prague in 1986 and at the last European Championships in Paris took team gold and bronze in doubles together with Lindh himself, and Yoo Nam-kyu, a 20-year-old left-hander from Busan, already Asian champion two years earlier in Seoul, who begins his quest for the gold medal in Group G by winning seven matches and leaving just one set to the Englishman Carl Prean. The Polish Leszek Kucharski, defeated with a round 3-0 by the Korean and who brings with him the title of vice-champion of Europe in singles in 1986 surpassed by Persson, is the last of those admitted to the round of 16, the stage of the competition which will therefore see 6 Asians (3 Chinese, 2 Koreans and 1 Japanese) and 10 Europeans opposing each other, with the complete Swedish contingent with its 3 players, Poland and Yugoslavia who have two qualified tennis players, and Hungary, Austria and Great Britain in complete the board.
In the round of 16 Jiang Jialing, Waldner and Chen Longcan fully respect their role as the top three in the rankingbut if the two Chinese do not have great difficulties in overcoming the obstacles proposed by Douglas and Lupulesku, even if the number 1 leaves a set on the way, the Swede libra with Kucharski a challenge resolved only in the decisive partialrecovering from 1-2 to finally prevail 21-23 22-20 17-21 21-17 21-14, with the other two Scandinavians, Lindh and Persson, who eliminated Ono and Grubba, the veteran Klampar, 35 years old who already in 1971, in Nagoya, managed to win the world championship gold in doubles, who ousted Yi Ding, and Kim Ki-taik, supported by the support of the Korean fans, who beat Xu Zengcai in five sets, overcoming a 0-2 deficit. But Yoo Nam-kyu is the most authoritative, liquidating Primorac with a 3-0 that allows no replies, 21-19 21-7 21-15.
What hadn’t happened before, that is, the tournament not respecting the ranking indications, instead happens in the quarter-finals. A real earthquake, with the three great favorites who leave us the pen, Jiang Jialing in four sets with Lindh (21-16 12-21 13-21 20-22), Waldner in the decisive set with Kim Ki-taik (21-17 17-21 22- 20 17-21 18-21) and Chen Longcan himself in five hard-fought sets with Klampar (19-21 21-7 21-11 19-21 19-21), despite having dominated the second and third sets. And with Yoo Nam-kyu who concedes the first set to Persson and then keeps the continuation of the match under control (19-21 21-16 21-15 21-9), here the quartet that goes to fight for the medals still has two in contention Koreans and two Europeans, with China instead sensationally remaining on the fringes of the podium. It will be the first and only time in the history of the Olympics.
The Seoul public is licking their chops, anticipating a possible final between two home tennis players. And hope turns into reality, with the two semi-finals which to be honest offer very little emotion, with Yoo Nam-kyu prevailing over Lindh (21-10 24-22 21-9) and Kim Ki-taik doing the same with Klampar, curiously leaving the opponent the same number of points, 41 (21-18 21-9 21-14). And if the Swede then goes on to take the bronze, depriving the Hungarian of a podium which 17 years after the first in a major international event would have been a record, that’s what on October 1, 1988 Yoo Nam-kyu and Kim Ki-taik are facing each other with the historic goal of inscribing their name, and it would be the first, in the roll of honor of table tennis at the Games.
And the challenge between the two home champions doesn’t really disappoint expectations, with Kim Ki-taik to take the first set, 21-17, Yoo Nam-kyu to impose himself in the second, 21-19, dominate the third, 21-11, and give life to a fourth, dramatic partial. The youngest of the two finalists runs with his head, gaining an advantage that seems decisive, 13-9, but Kim Ki-taik doesn’t give up, recovers at 17-17, recovers another two points deficit to reach 20-20, but finally he is forced to raise the white flag, 23-21.
It ends 3-1 with Yoo Nam-kyu collapsing to the ground intoxicated with joy. And it seems to you that he doesn’t have good reasons?