On January 31, Beijing time, the Japanese table tennis team officially announced the list of athletes participating in the 2024 Busan World Table Tennis Championships, among which Tomokazu Zhangmoto and Hina Hayada have already been shortlisted through the Olympic selection points, and the new men's and women's teams who were "escorted" by the Table Tennis Association are 16-year-old Matsushima Teruku, and 19-year-old world runner-up Miyu Kihara, as follows
Men's team: Tomokazu Zhangmoto, Hayasuke Togami, Oto Shinozuka, Yutai Tanaka, Teruma Matsushima;
Girl group: Hina Hayata, Miu Hirano, Misei Ito, Miwa Zhangmoto, Miyu Kihara.
Yoshimura Maharu, who won the mixed doubles world championship with Kasumi Ishikawa and ranked fifth in the men's Olympic selection standings, unfortunately lost the selection, and became a sparring partner with Kazuki Hamada, Miyu Nagasaki, and Ayano I.
As early as more than a year ago, the Japanese team has determined the selection method for the Busan World Table Tennis Championships, in which four men and four women are directly selected for the top four of the team's Olympic selection standings, and the fifth person is recommended by the Table Tennis Association.
In January this year, the last Olympic trials of the Japanese table tennis and the national championships came to an end, and the men's Tomokazu Zhangmoto, Hayasuke Togami, Shinozuka Daito, Tanaka Yutai and the women's Hina Hayata, Miu Hirano, Misei Ito, and Miwa Zhang were ahead of other teammates, so they directly qualified for the qualification, and the main controversy was the candidates recommended by the Table Tennis Association.
Relatively speaking, the "fifth person" of the Japanese women's team is not very controversial, Miyu Kihara, who was born in 2004, has long been the main player in the World Championships, and has won medals many times, and is also ranked fifth in the team's Olympic selection standings, and the world ranking is also high, so no matter from the perspective of age, results, ranking, points, experience, etc., it is normal to recommend her to enter this year's World Table Tennis Championships lineup.
However, the situation for the Japanese men's team is more complicated, with several players competing in addition to the first four, including world champion Maharu Yoshimura, national champions Yukiya Uda and Ruiki Kagawa, but it was young star Teruku Matsushima who finally caught the last train.
Compared with Yoshimura Maharu, who was born in 1993, Matsushima Teruku, who was born in 2007, is obviously more valuable for training, and he has made great progress in the past year, having defeated world champion Ocharov, world runner-up Tomokazu Zhangmoto and others, and almost overturned Lin Yunru, although he is only 16 years old, he is completely close to the level of first-class athletes in foreign associations.
As for Yuya Uda and Ruiki Kagawa, although they won the men's singles championship at the Japanese National Championships, their form in recent years has not been as good as before, and in the end, they also failed to participate in this year's World Table Tennis Championships like Yoshimura Maharu.
So when will the Chinese team list be released? Let's sit back and wait for the latest news to come out!