Superior world number one.
But Wang Chuqin lost to Truls Möregårdh in the Olympics.
Now the Chinese is forced to fight back against the rumours.
– It didn’t affect me, he says.
Superior world number one and eight out of eight possible wins against Truls Möregårdh. The question was what could possibly stop Wang Chuqin in the second round of Olympic ping pong. Many speculated on a broken racket.
Forced to big change
The match between Truls Möregårdh and the Chinese world number one was postponed for a couple of days when Chuqin played a mixed doubles tournament. He won gold there for China on Tuesday, but had his cheer cut short when a photographer in the frenzy of victory accidentally trampled his racket. Once the match against Möregårdh got underway, the star looked shaken, and it ended up being a shock loss against the Swede, in what some have called the biggest Swedish Olympic scandal ever.
And in China it is easy to have strong reactions. According to the South China Morning Post, Wang’s loss trended high on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, with many speculating that the broken racket, and the fact that Wang was forced to play with his spare racket, was the reason for the loss.
“How could he adapt to a new racket in such a short time?”, writes one user according to the newspaper.
“I hate the photographer,” writes another.
Now striking back
But when the media asked questions about the whole thing after Möregårdh’s win, Wang was clearly forced to fight back. He argued that the racket had nothing to do with the loss, and that it was all on him.
– I didn’t play well. I had chances in the first and fifth sets, but didn’t take them. I think Möregårdh deserved to win, he says.
When asked directly whether the new racket affected his performance, he replied:
– It made no difference.
He then continues:
– It affected my mood yesterday, but that’s not why I lost. I made too many mistakes, which made me fail.
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