The Olympics are less than two months away. While much uncertainty has surrounded the games, some details are finally coming into focus. On Tuesday, June 1, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced its wild card spots for individual players in the Tokyo Olympics. While some participants were known almost two years ago, thanks to continental qualifiers such as the 2019 European Games, the COVID-19 pandemic cast the entire proceedings into chaos and uncertainty from which it is only now beginning to emerge. With all individual, team and mixed doubles qualifiers in the books, the final stage in Olympic selection is the wild card selection, awarded to the highest-ranked players in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) who have thus far eluded qualification, and/or vice-versa. The highest ranked women's wild card is world #33 Margaryta Pesotska of Ukraine, followed by Matilda Ekholm of Sweden, Hana Matelová of Czech Republic, Barbora Balážová of Slovakia, Li Jie of the Netherlands, Shao Jieni of Portugal, Ganna Gaponova of Ukraine, Debora Vivarelli of Italy and Sarah De Nutte of Luxembourg. Spain's world #77 Galia Dvorak secured the 10th and final women's wild card spot. Six men were allotted spots, led by world #15 Liam Pitchford of Great Britain and followed closely by Quadri Aruna of Nigeria, Robert Gardos of Austria, Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus, and Daniel Habesohn of Austria. Kirill Gerassimenko, the world #46 from Kazakhstan, snagged the final spot. With his selection, the 45-year-old evergreen Vladimir Samsonov (pictured) joins the short list of table tennis players with seven Olympic appearances. Also joining the exclusive "7 club" this summer is Olufunke Oshonaike of Nigeria, who secured her ticket at last year's Africa Qualification Event in Tunis. In 2012, the IOC changed the number of allocations for singles events awarded to each qualifying country, from three to two. This was necessary to ensure that China could not sweep all six singles medals, as they had in 2008. As a result of the rule change, China must select the players it feels have the best chance at the upcoming games, regardless of past accolades. Thus, neither defending Olympic champion Ding Ning (world #5) nor current World Champion Liu Shiwen (world #7) was selected to compete in singles. Meanwhile, world #242 Sally Yee of Fiji has a chance of winning the women's singles gold by virtue of winning the Oceania qualification. Now we know who will be in Tokyo this summer. There remains, however, the small matter of what they will do when they get there.

More at Xinhua