Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once famously expounded, "As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know." One field of study transferring from the latter category to the former is the makeup of the national table tennis teams heading to Tokyo in two short months for the long-awaited 2020 Olympics. The lineups for 15 women's teams and 16 men's teams have been announced by their respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs). Germany's 40-year-old Timo Boll has medaled in the last three Olympic team events, but watched the same nation go on to claim gold every time. "The Chinese players have been dominating the sport for many years but I try my best to beat them every time we meet," says Boll, who may be playing in his last Olympics. Even first-time Olympians like 17-year-old Japanese wunderkind Tomokazu Harimoto are well aware of the massive shadow China casts over all other competitors. "It has always been my childhood dream to play at the Olympic Games," reflected Harimoto. "In the team event, there is only one team of Chinese players, so the chance of winning a medal is higher than in the singles events." Somewhere in the middle is Brazil's 24-year-old Hugo Calderano. The first player from Latin America to crack the global top 10, Calderano will be competing in his second Olympics. "My focus is to get a medal at the Olympic Games," confessed Calderano. "My biggest goal and what I practice for is to beat the Chinese players in big events, like the Olympics, where they’ve won the most part of the medals in history." Also acutely aware of this tradition of dominance is China itself. Although the team lineups are already known, the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA) has announced it will conduct another mock Olympiad, mimicking Olympic singles, mixed doubles and team events in minute detail. The CTTA is staging the simulation, its third in less than a year, from May 26th to 30th in order to maximize its players' preparedness. "As this has been the first public competition since our Olympic squad was announced, how about our Olympic participants' mentality and technical shape?" Chinese national men's team coach Qin Zhijian rhetorically asked. "All of these require tests through matches." Having won 28 of the 32 gold medals in Olympic table tennis history, China's dominance is a known known. Whether anyone can beat them, however, falls in the latter of Rumsfeld's categories.

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