Sunday, August 24, 2008

Not so ancient Chinese wisdom

Qiu Zhonghui, the first Chinese woman to win a sports world championship when she won the 1961 table tennis title said something that struck us as relevant to racquetball. She was commenting on the prospect of China sweeping the gold medals in ping-pong (ping-pong is Mandarin for table tennis, so that's what the sport's called in China).

Qiu said "I am a patriot, but if China always wins, athletes from other countries lose interest. You just end up playing yourself. I think it's good for sport if China does not win everything." (from "Ping-Pong's long legacy" by Rod Mickleburgh, The Globe and Mail, August 23, 2008, p. S5).

We couldn't have said it any better ourselves. And certainly not in Mandarin.

Follow the bouncing ball....

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