In the men's singles final of the Saudi Grand Slam, Wang Chuqin was not afraid to beat the dark horse Francesca, 32, 4-2. The German veteran defeated Fan Zhendong 3-2 in the 1/8 final.
On May 11, the 24th birthday of Wang Chuqin, after winning the championship, Wang Chuqin made a gesture with the number "3", which means that the championship of men's singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles will be achieved.
World Table Tennis Professional League on official microblog @WTT World Table Tennis Federation Wang Chuqin, who ranked No. 1 in the world in men's singles for the eighth consecutive week in the International Table Tennis Federation, sent his best wishes: "In his youth, he did not lose sight of Shaohua."
The years 2023 and 2024 are indeed the year when Wang Chuqin made breakthroughs.
At the Hangzhou Asian Games, Wang Chuqin became the first table tennis player to win four gold medals in men's singles, men's doubles, mixed doubles and men's team at the same Asian Games.
On December 26, 2023, Wang Chuqin was rated by the Sports Department of Xinhua News Agency as one of the top ten Chinese athletes in 2023 and the only table tennis player on the list.
In December 2023, Forbes China released the list of China's 30 Under 30 in 2023, and Wang Chuqin became the only player in China's table tennis industry.
On the evening of January 5, 2024, Wang Chuqin defeated Fan Zhendong 4-0 in the men's singles final of the 2023 World Table Tennis Federation Men's Finals. In February, at the Busan World Table Tennis Championships, Wang Chuqin overcame the pressure to win the semi-final of the men's team against the host Korean team 3-0 in the final set, helping the Chinese team overcome the most difficult hurdle.
Sun Yingsha, also born in 2000, has a strong momentum and can be called the sun at its zenith.
Although she lost to Chen Meng 2-4 in the women's singles final that ended earlier, ending her six consecutive victories against Chen Meng, the defending champion of Olympic table tennis women's singles, Sun Yingsha still has a prominent dominance in the women's singles arena.
After the game, Chen Meng said in an interview that he was slightly surprised, "I didn't expect to win Sasha this time in Saudi Arabia, and I haven't won much against Sasha in the past two years."
With the approaching of the Paris Olympic Games and the entrance examination for athletes, the results of each competition are crucial to the career and the trend of business value, and even the situation that the world will be settled in the first battle may occur.
Today, the traditional competitive events of the Chinese team, gymnastics, diving, table tennis and badminton, have all obtained full Olympic qualification. This year's popularity and gold medal winners may be among these players:
Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong were selected into the list of men's singles players in table tennis at the Paris Olympic Games. Wang Chuqin/Sun Yingsha won mixed doubles seats, and the three were automatically qualified for team competition; Quan Hongchan, Chen Yuxi and Qin Haiyang, the swimmer who won the gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games, have all secured the Olympic qualification.
In the women's 100m hurdles, a non gold medal winning event, Wu Yanni qualified for the Paris Olympic Games with her silver medal of 12.76 seconds in the women's 100m hurdles final at the Chengdu Universiade last August; In a highly professional tennis event, Zheng Qinwen went straight to the Paris Olympic Games with his gold medal performance in women's singles at the Hangzhou Asian Games last September
Who will become the Chinese athlete with the strongest ability to attract gold by virtue of the Olympic performance? Let's first take a look at the outstanding Chinese legions in the previous Olympic Games.
In 2003, the 20-year-old Liu Xiang earned 1.6 million yuan in annual commercial income. However, after winning the 110m hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the commercial value of China's "Flying Man" soared all the way, reaching 160 million yuan in 2007.
Before the 2012 London Olympic Games, Liu Xiang had 17 sponsors. Sun Yang, who won two gold medals, one silver medal and one bronze medal in London Olympic Games in 2012, filled the gap of Chinese men's swimming Olympic champion. He continued his magic performance at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. He won another gold medal and one silver medal. It is reported that the annual income of "Big White Poplar" in 2016 was 69 million yuan.
Gu Ailing is another one who has "soared" in the business field with the Olympic achievements.
At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Gu Ailing, 18 years old and five months old, won two gold medals and one silver in 11 days, becoming a favorite in the business world.
In the list of women athletes' income in 2023 published by Forbes magazine, Gu Ailing ranks second with the status of 22.1 million dollars (about 160 million yuan). Among the income composition, 22 million dollars come from off court endorsements, including luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Wanguo watches.
"Without a champion, who will pay attention to you?" This statement does not apply to all scenes. It is not necessary to win gold in the Olympic Games, so there will be huge commercial returns.
For example, in the hyperburning Hundred meter Flying Man War, making a historic breakthrough for the country can also become a gold digger.
In the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, Su Bingtian ran a new Asian record of 9.83 seconds in the men's 100m semi-final, reaching the final in a historic way.
After the Tokyo Olympic Games, Su Bingtian won 13 commercial endorsements, including GAC Trumpchi, Xiaomi, Shunfeng, China Merchants Bank, Jindian, etc., and the endorsement fee of Xiaomi for one year alone reached 5.2 million yuan.
Like Gu Ailing and Djokovic, Zheng Qinwen, a signed athlete from the internationally renowned brokerage firm IMG, also won the endorsement of Rolex, Nike, Wilson, Gatorade and Ant Group with his excellent momentum and popularity.
In Forbes' list of female athletes with the highest income in sports in 2023, Zheng Qinwen ranks 15th, with 1.7 million dollars (12.28 million yuan) in prize money and 5.5 million dollars (39.75 million yuan) in sponsorship. In 2023, the income will exceed 52 million yuan.
In January 2024, Zheng Qinwen, 21, won the Australian Open final. Although he was the runner up, the momentum determined that his business value would rise. In this April, Zheng Qinwen has just become the first "health ambassador" of the tea brand Bawang Chaji.
The Olympic Games, held every four years, is not only a sports event, but also a commercial marketing event. At the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, four Chinese athletes led by swimmer Qin Haiyang (Sun Yiwen fencing, Liu Qingyi break dancing, disabled track and field athlete Wen Xiaoyan) joined the Olympic global partner "Visa Team", and Qin Haiyang was even on the cover of the April issue of the fashionable lifestyle magazine Ruishi ELLEMEN.
For brands that fail to rank among the 15 global partners of the Olympic Games, 18 kinds of martial arts are also required to participate in the battle of sports marketing.
On April 16, Yili, as the official dairy product partner of the Chinese sports delegation for the 2024 Olympic Games, released a number of new customized clothes in Paris. The "Yili Team", composed of divers Quan Hongchan, Chen Yuxi, Wang Zongyuan, swimmers Zhang Yufei, Qin Haiyang, Fan Zhendong, Sun Yingsha, Wang Chuqin, and others, officially appeared.
On April 22, Coca Cola officially announced the lineup of Coca Cola's Olympic stars, including Wang Chuqin, Sun Yingsha, Quan Hongchan, Chen Yuxi, Wang Zongyuan, Xie Zhenye and break dancing star Liu Qingyi.
According to iResearch, during the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, the most concerned event of the audience is the "national ball" table tennis.
In the Chinese table tennis world, the former gold diggers and popularity kings have always been Zhang Jike and Ma Long.
The former has gained a lot in business by virtue of the men's singles and men's team champions of the 2012 London Olympic Games and the men's table tennis team champions and men's singles runners up of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.
In 2017, Titan Sports Weekly published the 2016 China Sports Fortune List. Zhang Jike ranked second with a revenue of 60 million yuan and commercial endorsements of more than 40 million yuan.
According to media reports, the "Dragon Team" with five Olympic champions has won about 20 business endorsements in two years, including Prada, Omega, L'Oreal, Shuanghui and Nanfu batteries, and its annual income is no less than 30 million yuan.
Compared with the predecessors, the popularity of "Sha Tou" and the aura of the new era of star chasing have a huge personal fan group and traffic, and the popularity of these fans is not even based on performance as the first prerequisite, regardless of your performance, it is you who are targeted.
On the microblog platform, Sun Yingsha has 3165000 fans, 900000 more than Chen Meng; Wang Chuqin also has 2.62 million micro blog fans, one million more than Fan Zhendong.
This is not only related to the popularity of national sports in China, but also related to the performance and personal charm of the two players.
Of course, the young fans of the new era who joined Weibo also brought age dividends to Xinobviously.
From 2020 to 2021, it blocked Ito Meicheng in the semi-finals of the competition for three times, making contributions to China's table tennis hegemony.
Especially in the women's table tennis singles semi-final of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, Sun Yingsha, who is still under the age of 21, won the gold medal in mixed doubles with Mizutani three days ago by 4-0. Her perfect performance also made many fans remember her at once.
Sun Yingsha has a good personality, good temperament, strong affinity, and a decent speech. She is a representative of the positive energy of the post-00s. She has a clean heart (Liu Guoliang's words), works hard, marches forward bravely, and has a strong influence. Her fan group is nicknamed "Sandstorm".
As the "favorite of the national table tennis team", in Sun Yingsha's own words, "I think I am the most beautiful and lovely in the world."
Wang Chuqin, the high-profile "big head", is regarded as the "next Zhang Jike" in terms of gold absorption potential.
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Jike was just 24 years old when he won two gold medals in the men's singles team of table tennis at the Olympic Games for the first time. Now the 24 year old Wang Chuqin has grown up in a similar way. Even the "Dragon Team" modestly said in an interview with the media, "I took Wang Chuqin with me five years ago, and now he is taking me with him."
The strong personal development momentum, massive fan groups and the support of the gold medal event "National Football Team" ensured the super popularity of the "Shatou Group" and its position in the Chinese legion of the entire Paris Olympic Games was "at the height of the sun".
Achievements+popularity are naturally favored by the business community. In addition to Yili and Coca Cola, Sun Yingsha has signed with China Post, Li Ning, PICO4 VR, Vanward Electric, Sacred Elephant Flooring, and Delux under Byte Beat. Wang Chuqin has also signed with skin care brands Keyan's, Panasonic Air Conditioner, China Post, and Li Ning. In addition, the two also co endorsed the pro bono socks industry from Jilin Province.
For Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, a potential gold medal rule of Olympic table tennis singles is that since the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, when table tennis was listed as an official event of the Olympic Games, 18 table tennis singles champions and 15 Olympic table tennis singles champions were born in the 9 Olympic Games (Deng Yaping, Zhang Yining and Ma Long all defended their titles) 14 of them were born north of 34 ° N, accounting for 93.3%.
There is only one exception - Chen Jing, the table tennis women's singles champion at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, was born in Wuhan, which is also the only Olympic table tennis singles champion from a southern city in China.
In any case, it is certain that the Paris Olympic Games will officially announce the full arrival of Generation Z in the world sports arena.
In terms of competition system, the Paris Olympic Games can theoretically witness the birth of the first table tennis player who won three consecutive gold medals (singles, team and mixed doubles) in a single Olympic Games in the history of the Olympic Games?
The next question is, in the era of "attention economy", if one or two of the "Shatou Group" creatively achieve a single Olympic gold medal hat trick at the Paris Olympic Games, will they become the ultimate gold medal winner of Chinese sports in 2024? (Nanshan South)
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