Not a lot of China's 1.3 billion people understand Gao Jun.. Forgive Her if sometimes it seems they do "I go with her on the road, and people point," says Teodor Gheorghe, coach of the U.S. Olympic women's ping pong team. "They call out, 'Gao Jun! Gao Jun!'" That never happens in the USA. Gao laughs at so ridiculous a belief "No," she says. "Ping pong is a basement game in U.S. -- a hobby game, not a serious game." Ping pong is acutely severe for Gao, 38, and has been for so long as she can recall. Next week it will be one year before the Olympics begin in Beijing, where she was sent to boarding school some 400 miles from house to learn how to play at 5 Gao heard well. She won a world championship in doubles in 1991 and a silver medal in doubles at the 1992 Olympics, both for China. By the end of the following year she had married an American, which is how she became a U.S. citizen https://github.com/pingpongsport/bestpingpong/wiki/Best-Ping-Pong-Paddles-&-How-To-Choose-Them.
Now, at the twilight of her profession, her fondest desire is to acquire the USA's first medal in ping pong, in China's first Olympics Gao played for the USA in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and lost in the first rounds in singles and doubles each time after progressing from pool play. Last month she won gold awards for the USA in doubles and singles in the Pan American Games She is currently in Beijing just now with a delegation of additional American Olympic hopefuls for a press tour that starts today "I love to see how it looks like, the Olympics in Beijing," she states. "In 1992, when I played for China, at the time China attempted to find the 2000 Olympics. So China dropped to Australia. So I believe then, 'Oh, if I could play the Olympics in Beijing.'"
Next summer she'll have that opportunity. She says it will not be difficult To play with her new nation against her old one, should this type of match happen. She has been doing that for some years and came to terms with it long past "Yeah, no problem," she says. "Inside of this heart it seems odd, but that's before you perform. As soon as you visit the dining table, you forget everything.
You focus on your own sport. She is my competitor. I only want to try and win. So that is it. Sport is sport." Not those who realize her in her native territory feel equally. She cites a fan who approached her after a World Cup event a few years back at Shanghai, where she resides and trains these days "I only beat among the Chinese girls. (Later) I took all the U.S. staff to go shopping," she says. "From the shopping area, 1 person points at me and says: 'You play with your U.S.. Why you perform for the U.S.? Why you conquer China staff?'" Gao told me: "'Well, I'm much better than her'" She laughs out loud in the memory. "It is funny. I don't feel sad about that. It happened." Enjoying the game in a World Cup event in Las Vegas in 1992, a friend introduced Gao into American Frank Chang, a computer programmer ping pong table reviews.
By the end of 1993, they had been married. Soon she retired from ping Pong -- not because she didn't adore it, she says, but since the pressure to perform for China had become too good "When you're young, you don't feel that you perform for country, you feel that you just play on your own," she states. "However, when you are getting older and older, you play some worldwide tournaments, like the Olympics or world championships. The coach and the team boss and everybody are like, 'Ah, you need to win the decoration. You are not representing yourself, you are representing our country.' "Then you think, 'Oh my God, should I lose, that means my nation loses.' It's like this since ping pong is large sports in China. Like for U.S., when I got a silver trophy, we're going to be like, what, big heroes. But for China, should you get instant, that means you're the loser. This is a large difference. You do not feel fun. You can't enjoy that type of stuff."
The Olympic silver decoration She won for China in doubles 1992 was celebrated nationwide -- for one crucial reason. "We dropped to teammates, so that has been fine," she says After she married Chang, Gao moved to Gaithersburg, Md., a suburb of the country's capital, worked to get a satellite phone business and played mostly recreationally. From 1997, she had been coaxed into joining the U.S. national group. "But she didn't play badly," Gheorghe says. "She was just making one trip a year, for tournaments like Pan Are the Olympics. She was still working." Gao and Chang divorced in 2002. She declines to explore the circumstances except to say he is remarried and living in Los Angeles and they speak with e-mail sometimes "it is a really sad story," she says. "But for me, the sad story is happy now.
For Chinese people, they say divorce is not any good. However, I believe for the U.S., if You cannot make yourself happy, why not? Now I believe I made the ideal decision." "Sometimes surgery hurts but cures," Gheorghe states Gao says she'd up ping pong full time following the divorce. She moved back into China to study and play at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. Gao earned a degree in economics in 2005 -- she's unsure exactly what she will do with it and came to love her game.
"I think maybe why I enjoy The sport now is because during the divorce that which makes me feel no good," she says. "But once I go to the dining table and play, I forget everything, so then I just enjoy it. This is the most that I like this game today." Ready for another shot She did not actually like it as a kid of 5, even when she was delivered to Beijing from her home in Liaoning, a province in northeastern China, near the border with North Korea "Well, I don't feel I loved to play with," she says. "You see, in China, it is not like the U.S. and you've got a good deal of choice. You can't say no to the parents. In China, we always listen. You understand from the start. So we don't have our own thoughts. If the parents say, 'You have to go there,' I say, 'OK, I proceed.' Since they knew if I want to have a good future, I have to go -- for me personally."
She practiced three hours a day at the Boarding school; her parents moved to a small town two hours away by car so that they could see her on weekends. At 12, she advanced into a provincial team, her journey increased, and her parents moved back. At 16, she left the national team, and clinic raised to six hours a day. Today, as one of the world's elite, she practices two hours per day and receives funding in the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Outside the table, she is a really soft, pleasant person," Gheorghe states. "At the table, she's extremely tough. You don't need to get her mad."
Gao doesn't Have kids. If she did, she says, "I would want them to play not like my parents did to me." She stays close to her parents and her sister, Gloria, 31. They frequently come to see her perform, she states, ping pong robot review, and they're thrilled at the possibility of watching her in Beijing next summer Won't it be psychological to play in the Olympics at a town she called home? "I don't know," she states. "I never consider it. I just attempt to make the Olympic team first."
That will not be a issue, Gheorghe says. "As of now, she's capable," he states. "She's 16th in the world. The top 20 are directly qualified for the Olympics, with not more than two each state, and China has eight at the top 20." Does she have a chance at a trophy when she'll be 39? After all, she was 23 when she won silver in 1992 and believes her very best chance at gold was that the 1996 Games, when she was 27 and retired. "It is difficult to have great results when you are old," she states. "It's probably 20 through 30. (That) type old, it's the best age."
Gheorghe dismisses such thinking. "Everybody Has a chance when they go to the Olympic Games," he says. Much depends upon The attraction -- becoming competitions whose playing styles are appropriate to Gao's Strengths, which she explains as penalizing with her backhand and attentive Positioning of her forehand assault "We Say if you would like to be the very best in the world, first you've got to have the Ability," Gao says. "Then you've got to work hard. And it is not enough. You have to have some luck."
Now, at the twilight of her profession, her fondest desire is to acquire the USA's first medal in ping pong, in China's first Olympics Gao played for the USA in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and lost in the first rounds in singles and doubles each time after progressing from pool play. Last month she won gold awards for the USA in doubles and singles in the Pan American Games She is currently in Beijing just now with a delegation of additional American Olympic hopefuls for a press tour that starts today "I love to see how it looks like, the Olympics in Beijing," she states. "In 1992, when I played for China, at the time China attempted to find the 2000 Olympics. So China dropped to Australia. So I believe then, 'Oh, if I could play the Olympics in Beijing.'"
Next summer she'll have that opportunity. She says it will not be difficult To play with her new nation against her old one, should this type of match happen. She has been doing that for some years and came to terms with it long past "Yeah, no problem," she says. "Inside of this heart it seems odd, but that's before you perform. As soon as you visit the dining table, you forget everything.
You focus on your own sport. She is my competitor. I only want to try and win. So that is it. Sport is sport." Not those who realize her in her native territory feel equally. She cites a fan who approached her after a World Cup event a few years back at Shanghai, where she resides and trains these days "I only beat among the Chinese girls. (Later) I took all the U.S. staff to go shopping," she says. "From the shopping area, 1 person points at me and says: 'You play with your U.S.. Why you perform for the U.S.? Why you conquer China staff?'" Gao told me: "'Well, I'm much better than her'" She laughs out loud in the memory. "It is funny. I don't feel sad about that. It happened." Enjoying the game in a World Cup event in Las Vegas in 1992, a friend introduced Gao into American Frank Chang, a computer programmer ping pong table reviews.
By the end of 1993, they had been married. Soon she retired from ping Pong -- not because she didn't adore it, she says, but since the pressure to perform for China had become too good "When you're young, you don't feel that you perform for country, you feel that you just play on your own," she states. "However, when you are getting older and older, you play some worldwide tournaments, like the Olympics or world championships. The coach and the team boss and everybody are like, 'Ah, you need to win the decoration. You are not representing yourself, you are representing our country.' "Then you think, 'Oh my God, should I lose, that means my nation loses.' It's like this since ping pong is large sports in China. Like for U.S., when I got a silver trophy, we're going to be like, what, big heroes. But for China, should you get instant, that means you're the loser. This is a large difference. You do not feel fun. You can't enjoy that type of stuff."
The Olympic silver decoration She won for China in doubles 1992 was celebrated nationwide -- for one crucial reason. "We dropped to teammates, so that has been fine," she says After she married Chang, Gao moved to Gaithersburg, Md., a suburb of the country's capital, worked to get a satellite phone business and played mostly recreationally. From 1997, she had been coaxed into joining the U.S. national group. "But she didn't play badly," Gheorghe says. "She was just making one trip a year, for tournaments like Pan Are the Olympics. She was still working." Gao and Chang divorced in 2002. She declines to explore the circumstances except to say he is remarried and living in Los Angeles and they speak with e-mail sometimes "it is a really sad story," she says. "But for me, the sad story is happy now.
For Chinese people, they say divorce is not any good. However, I believe for the U.S., if You cannot make yourself happy, why not? Now I believe I made the ideal decision." "Sometimes surgery hurts but cures," Gheorghe states Gao says she'd up ping pong full time following the divorce. She moved back into China to study and play at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. Gao earned a degree in economics in 2005 -- she's unsure exactly what she will do with it and came to love her game.
"I think maybe why I enjoy The sport now is because during the divorce that which makes me feel no good," she says. "But once I go to the dining table and play, I forget everything, so then I just enjoy it. This is the most that I like this game today." Ready for another shot She did not actually like it as a kid of 5, even when she was delivered to Beijing from her home in Liaoning, a province in northeastern China, near the border with North Korea "Well, I don't feel I loved to play with," she says. "You see, in China, it is not like the U.S. and you've got a good deal of choice. You can't say no to the parents. In China, we always listen. You understand from the start. So we don't have our own thoughts. If the parents say, 'You have to go there,' I say, 'OK, I proceed.' Since they knew if I want to have a good future, I have to go -- for me personally."
She practiced three hours a day at the Boarding school; her parents moved to a small town two hours away by car so that they could see her on weekends. At 12, she advanced into a provincial team, her journey increased, and her parents moved back. At 16, she left the national team, and clinic raised to six hours a day. Today, as one of the world's elite, she practices two hours per day and receives funding in the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Outside the table, she is a really soft, pleasant person," Gheorghe states. "At the table, she's extremely tough. You don't need to get her mad."
Gao doesn't Have kids. If she did, she says, "I would want them to play not like my parents did to me." She stays close to her parents and her sister, Gloria, 31. They frequently come to see her perform, she states, ping pong robot review, and they're thrilled at the possibility of watching her in Beijing next summer Won't it be psychological to play in the Olympics at a town she called home? "I don't know," she states. "I never consider it. I just attempt to make the Olympic team first."
That will not be a issue, Gheorghe says. "As of now, she's capable," he states. "She's 16th in the world. The top 20 are directly qualified for the Olympics, with not more than two each state, and China has eight at the top 20." Does she have a chance at a trophy when she'll be 39? After all, she was 23 when she won silver in 1992 and believes her very best chance at gold was that the 1996 Games, when she was 27 and retired. "It is difficult to have great results when you are old," she states. "It's probably 20 through 30. (That) type old, it's the best age."
Gheorghe dismisses such thinking. "Everybody Has a chance when they go to the Olympic Games," he says. Much depends upon The attraction -- becoming competitions whose playing styles are appropriate to Gao's Strengths, which she explains as penalizing with her backhand and attentive Positioning of her forehand assault "We Say if you would like to be the very best in the world, first you've got to have the Ability," Gao says. "Then you've got to work hard. And it is not enough. You have to have some luck."
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