Table tennis racket with 2 autographs by Sun Yingsha and Wang Chunxin

Sun Yingsha is a rising table tennis star and reigning Olympic champion, whose meteoric career and unstoppable will to win have already made her an icon of modern women's table tennis.

Wang Chunxin, in turn, represents a new generation of Chinese champions, demonstrating a phenomenal game and promising to become the new leader of the men's world rankings.

Chinese athletes have dominated table tennis so much that since 1988, when the sport was included in the Olympic program, gold medals have invariably been won by either representatives of China or South Korea. The only exception in history was the Swede Jan-Uwe Waldner, who managed to break this tradition. At the same time, professional players act with incredible speed — in a minute each of them strikes up to 120-150 blows, that is, 2-2.5 per second, and the speed of the ball can reach 150-170 km/h.