Ding Ning
China
Table Tennis
Overall Ranks
#10 among Chinese Olympians
#7 among Table Tennis athletes
#5 among Female Chinese Table Tennis Athletes
Olympic Results
2012
Singles - Silver
Team - Gold
2016
Singles - Gold
Team - Gold
Total
Events - 4
Gold - 3
Silver - 1
Ding Ning was born on June 20, 1990 in Daqing, China, and by the age of 5 had begun training for a career in table tennis. She was assigned to study at Xiannongtan Sports School, and by age 19 had made the national team.
She had her first major individual victories in 2011, when she won both the World Championship and the World Cup of table tennis. She entered the 2012 Olympics as the #1 ranked player in the world, and the favorite to win the gold medal, with her Chinese teammate Li Xiaoxia picked to win the silver.
Individual matches in the Olympics are played in a best of 7 format, and Ding lost only 3 games on the way to the final, while Li lost 4. In the final showdown, Li won the first two games by a small margin, then lost the third to Ding, before taking the final two games to take the gold and leave Ding with the individual silver.
The two finalists teamed up with Guo Yue in the team competition next, and the three Chinese swept through the entire tournament without losing a single game, earning the trio gold medals, the second for Guo and Li, but the first for Ding.
Leading up to the 2016 Olympics, Ding again won the World Championship in 2015, and was again the #1 seed in the singles tournament, where she dominated the competition on her way back to the gold medal match, losing only a single game along the way. The final was a rematch with Li, and it was an extremely close match, going all the way to 7 games, with Ding winning the final 2 to take the gold medal 4-3.
The two finalists again competed in the team event with a new teammate, first-time Olympian Liu Shiwen, but the result was exactly the same, with the Chinese winning every single game on its way to another gold medal.
Ding won another World Championship in 2017, but did not make the Chinese team for the 2020 games, as only 2 are allowed from each nation. She retired in 2021 to pursue a masters degree in physical education, and last year she was appointed the principal of the same sports school she attended as a child.
China has dominated the table tennis events at the Olympics since they were added, and Ding Ning is one of the best athletes to come from the country during that time, with her only loss coming in an Olympic final to a fellow countryman, making her one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time.
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