|
"Military training is a way to reinforce the team's unity and
temper their willpower," head coach Liu Guoliang, a former
Olympic and world table tennis champion, told Xinhua.
China's team began training in military facilities a few years
ago, and it has since become a tradition for the Asian
powerhouse who won all four table tennis gold medals at the 2012
London Olympics.
This year's camp for the first team players will take place from
Dec. 22 to 28 in the frigid northeastern province of Liaoning,
while the rest of the team stay in Beijing and train there, the
report added.
"For table tennis powerhouse China, competition is somehow like
a war that must be won. So it always moulds its table tennis
squad like an army, literally," Xinhua said.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
