Tokyo Olympics: China’s Sun Yingsha not told of dead grandmother till Games return

Women’s team gold medal winner kept in the dark by family over April death so she could concentrate on Olympic Games

New world No 2 trends on Weibo for overtaking Japan’s Mima Ito in the rankings

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Sun Yingsha of China reacts during her women’s team table tennis gold medal match against Mima Ito of Japan. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:58pm, 13 Aug 2021Updated: 9:45pm, 13 Aug 2021

China table tennis star Sun Yingsha was not told of her grandmother’s April death until after the Tokyo Olympic Games finished, her father told Chinese media.

According to reports, Sun’s family took the decision to keep the death of her grandmother from the 20-year-old so that she could focus on competing in the Tokyo Games, with the paddler already away at training camp.

Sun won gold in the women’s team event and silver in the women’s singles, beating Japanese table tennis rising star Mima Ito in both – 4-0 in the singles and 3-1 in their team match singles rubber.

Those performances saw Sun surpass Ito in the ITTF world rankings, moving up to No 2 ahead of her rival and behind Tokyo women’s singles gold medal winner Chen Meng of China.

Mima Ito of Japan reacts during her singles match against Sun Yingsha of China at the Toyko 2020 Olympic Games. Photo: Reuters

Sun’s new world ranking was a trending topic on Weibo under the hashtag “Sun Yingsha’s world ranking surpasses Mima Ito”.

The new world No 2 dismissed that to say the pair are relatively similar and the rankings do not mean much.