Liu Guoliang has the Midas touch. As a player, gold was always at his fingertips, winning everything on offer in the late 1990s. Liu became only the third player to win the career "Grand Slam" (i.e. singles championships in the Olympics, World Championships and World Cup), after fellow all-time greats Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden and his Chinese countrywoman Deng Yaping. Although he could have racked up many more medals as a player, Liu retired at only 27 to become the head coach of the Chinese national team. As a coach, Liu oversaw the greatest gold rush since the Klondike, 125 years ago. With Liu at the helm from 2001 to 2018, China racked up every gold medal on offer at the Olympics, save the 2004 men's singles when Wang Hao had no answers for an otherworldly performance from South Korea's Ryu Seung-min. Similar bonanzas followed Liu's leadership at the World Championships and World Cups. His habit of succeeding at every level ultimately got Liu stuck with even more responsibility, being elected President of the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA) in 2018 and chair of the nascent World Table Tennis (WTT) in 2020. In his new executive role, Liu was not about to leave China's winning ways to the vagaries of chance. When the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Liu organized China's own mock Olympics last summer to keep the team sharp. As international table tennis competition returned this March at the WTT Middle East Hub, Liu took the precautionary measure of keeping his team in China rather than risk exposure to the coronavirus. Now, with the long-awaited Olympic games less than three months away, Liu has found a way to compensate for the lack of international competition. Once again, the CTTA is staging a mock Olympic games with very real domestic competition in May. While designed to mirror the structure of the upcoming Olympiad, the giant tournament will also serve to prepare players for upcoming major events, including the World Championships in November and the sooner-than-usual 2024 Olympics. "The CTTA is not merely focusing on the Tokyo Olympics," said Liu. "We are also attempting to select and nurture talent for the Paris Olympics and beyond." After all, Liu did not develop his golden touch as a player, coach or executive by failing to prepare and simply leaving the results to chance. To the contrary, he is playing the long game, or what might someday be known as the Liu Guoliang game.

More at Reuters