It was all over.

I didn’t feel right since the third round, they seemed…tired, there was an absence of quondam brilliance in their face. But I didn’t pay much attention; it’s normal to fluctuate during the game, and moreover, they are a top table tennis team in the world.

Sweats were dripping from the athletes’ cheeks, and they looked focused, concentrated, ready to show off their talents unreservedly to the world. It was a tense match, and the suspense for the belonging of the championship wasn’t over until the seventh game.

Frankly, it was not comfortable to see the score go from 2:0 to 3:3, but we were always the one standing right up from the beginning to the end, weren’t we? “So, there was nothing to worry about,” I convinced myself.

Confidence that came out of nowhere filled my mind, but the reality ruthlessly shattered my hope. Opponent’s irresistible 8:0 indicated the end of the match so the miracle we had expected didn’t happen.

Xu’xin returned the serve into the net, and the match was over. My mind went blank in an instant, trying to figure out what was going on. Did we lose? Honestly in the Olympics? We hadn’t lost a single gold medal since the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. For all of these 17 years, countless international metals have seemed to spoil us as a spectator. The stereotypical thought of ‘Gold metal is always ours’ has long been engraved deeply in our Chinese people’s minds. But what we haven’t seen is all the hard work from the athletes, day after day’s training, injuries, commendable persistence from all the ageing athletes, etc.

The sport is progressing, the rules are changing, new skills, new rising stars, new opportunities springing up every day. Subtle changes are happening in the ping-pong world. From this moment, we will be the challenger.

It’s not over actually, and there’s no reason for our athletes to apologize. We cannot imagine how hard it is for the two above-30-athletes competing in an Olympic game. We will never know how desperate they want for the medal and how miserable they are when they miss it.

Some battles you win, while others you lose. One defeat won’t knock them off their pedestal. They are still our heroes and will always be. Adjusting our mindsets and correcting our attitudes, we will return to the top soon.