Four table tennis players nominated to Canadian Olympic team for Paris 2024
Canada is sending an experienced squad to Paris this summer.
Table Tennis Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee have named four athletes to their Olympic team ahead of the Paris 2024 Games next month.
Mo Zhang is the most experienced member of the team, and will compete at her fifth Olympic Games this summer. The 35-year-old made her Olympic debut in Beijing in 2008 and has competed at every Games since. After a 49th-place finish in women’s singles in Beijing, she has improved with every four years, finishing 33rd at London 2012 and Rio 2016, and then jumping to ninth at Tokyo 2020 — the latter matching Canada’s best-ever result in the women’s singles event.
Zhang has also had a glittering Pan American Games career, winning eight medals in five appearances — including a 2011 singles gold, a 2019 mixed doubles gold, and a mixed doubles bronze last year in Santiago.
“I’m very happy that I can play in my fifth Olympic Games. It’s an honour to be competing in the Olympics with other top Canadian athletes,” said Zhang in a press release. “I’m excited about the Opening Ceremony on the Seine, and also having an audience at these Games. I hope we play well in every game without any regrets, and I hope we can play to our highest level.”
In Tokyo, Zhang also finished ninth in mixed doubles alongside Eugene Wang, who is going to his fourth Olympics in Paris this summer.
Wang, 38, had that aforementioned ninth-place mixed doubles finish in Tokyo, and also helped the Canadian men’s team to a ninth-place finish at London 2012, just weeks after he received his Canadian citizenship. At Rio 2016 he was the only Canadian man to qualify, and was eliminated in the second round of the singles competition.
Wang has also won seven medals in three trips to the Pan American Games, three of which came in Santiago — a silver in the team event and bronzes in the mixed doubles and singles.
In Paris, he will play in both the men’s team and men’s singles events.
Canada hadn’t qualified a full men’s team since that ninth-place finish in London, but will again this year, with Jeremy Hazin and Edward Ly competing alongside Wang.
Hazin made his Olympic debut in Tokyo, where he finished tied for 49th in men’s singles. The 24-year-old became Canada’s youngest men’s singles national champion ever when he won the title in 2017 at age 17. He won a bronze medal at the Cali 2021 Junior Pan American Games, and previously competed at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima.
The youngest member of the team is 21-year-old Ly. He won the 2024 Pan Am Cup, which helped him qualify for the World Cup circuit this season. He was part of the silver-medal winning men’s team at Santiago 2023, and also competed at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. In Paris, he will take part in both the team and singles events.
Canada has never won an Olympic medal in table tennis since it was added to the Olympic sport program in 1988. Johnny Huang reaching the top-five in men’s singles at Atlanta 1996 is the nation’s best-ever result.
Table tennis will take place from July 27 to August 10 at the South Paris Arena 4.
Thank you for reading this post on True North. To be the first person to read future posts, and listen to new podcast episodes, subscribe for free using the button below, or share the article with someone you know.