Singles, Women

The favorite was the defending champion Wang Nan, who had also been World Champion in 1999, 2001, and 2003. At all three tounaments, she had defeated her teammate, Zhang Yining. But Wang was done in by the migration of her former teammates to other nations. In the quarter-finals she was defeated by Singapore’s Li Jia Wei, a former Chinese national team member, who gained revenge for her loss to Wang in the 2000 quarter-finals. Zhang had no such difficulties. In five matches she won 20 games and lost only two. Her opponent in the final was North Korean Kim Hyang-Mi, though opponent is used only loosely here. Kim was the sensation of the tournament as she had been ranked only 40th in the world prior to the Olympics, but in the final Zhang won four games in 26 minutes, 11-8, 11-7, 11-2, 11-2, the most lopsided final win in Olympic table tennis history. Wang and Zhang competed in doubles in Athina, and also won that gold medal.