The national table tennis wolf breeding plan has been implemented for a long time. We can’t help but wonder: How many wolves have we come up with? Are these wolves considered wolves? What changes have the raised wolves brought to the national table tennis team? ? Another question I still want to ask is, what effect does this wolf-raising plan have on national culture? (Note: The word "wolf" in this article needs to be in quotation marks!)

The National Table Tennis Wolf Raising Plan started in early 2009. When Cai Zhenhua took over the leadership of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, he proposed a long-term plan focusing on the future development of table tennis. We are prepared to adopt the approach of "go out and invite in" to help foreign table tennis players improve their level. In the 2008 Olympic Games, the national table tennis men's and women's singles won all the medals, which also made the ITTF very worried. If the international table tennis pattern cannot undergo some changes, it will be detrimental to the sport of table tennis and will most likely lead to an even worse development situation! Therefore, we have proposed the development direction of "go out, please come in". We also aim to find ways to change some of the imbalanced development of table tennis, even if the change is small! "Going global" means that we export our high-quality coaching team and our understanding and application of this sport. "Invite in" refers to inviting outstanding foreign players to come to China to play competitions, and inviting developing foreign players to come to China to participate in high-quality training.

The Wolf Raising Plan has been working hard to develop since it was proposed. We can see in media reports that Chinese coaches are active among coaches in many countries around the world, and even many Chinese players have joined representatives of foreign nationalities. Other countries go to war. But here comes the question, how many of the talents we exported and the players we trained have become real wolves? Let’s not talk about the former Chinese players who represent other countries. I always think that these are not wolves, because they cannot be called wolves by nature. The essential requirement of raising wolves is to train athletes who are not originally Chinese nationals. Going back to the previous question, we have raised several wolves in the past few years!

First of all, women’s table tennis. In these years, several good players have emerged, but they are still no threat to Chinese women's table tennis, such as Germany's Solga, Japan's Fukuhara Ai, Ishikawa Kasumi, Hirano Miu, and Ito Mima , Romania's Szokos, apart from these, I can't even think of any real outstanding foreign female table tennis players. Let’s look at the ITTF women’s rankings. You can see how many former Chinese players there are in the top 50. In recent years, except for Japan's Miu Hirano and Mima Ito, who have posed some threats to us, other players have not even caught our attention. But these two players have benefited from our plan, but the sacrifices made by their own countries are also obvious. So on the women's side, our wolf-raising plan was unsuccessful.

Let’s talk about men. In international competitions in recent years, the competition between men's players has become more and more intense, and their levels have become closer and closer. One is that the game thinking of our young players is different from that of top foreign players. Without the guidance of a coach, most foreign players will have much better rhythm and changes in the game than some domestic players. This has something to do with the training situation and sports crowd in their country. But it also speaks to how talented they are at playing the sport. In addition, in most games, they have had a considerable impact on the national table tennis men's team. And he has defeated the Chinese men's table tennis team in many games. Such as Boll and Ocharov of Germany, Calderano of Brazil, Freitas of Portugal, Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan, Falk of Sweden, etc. It is not difficult to see from this that the men's table tennis world has shown a relatively good development trend. Although our results in the three major competitions are still good, we have also seen the growth and progress of foreign players, which is more obvious than in women's table tennis. So the man’s plan to raise wolves is effective. Finally, let’s talk about whether these wolves are wolves or not. If we are compared to dragons, these of course can be considered wolves, but they still need to grow in front of dragons. If we were to put us in the same position as them, they have not yet reached the height required by wolves, but their impact already has the characteristics of wolves. We hope that in the next few years, the development of foreign players will be better. As a Chinese, I don’t want players from other associations to beat my country’s players. As a person who views things equally, I still hope that this sport can achieve balance.

Talking about the development of the wolf-raising plan, let’s talk about the impact of the wolf-raising plan on the national table tennis. With the continuous emergence of outstanding foreign players, it has had a big impact on national table tennis. For women, it has accelerated the replacement of old and new, and also accelerated the discovery and use of new technologies. That's why younger teams are now participating in the Olympics. It can be said that the age structure of women's table tennis in the Tokyo Olympics is younger than before. It’s particularly embarrassing for men! The situation of veterans taking the lead has not changed. It may be said that it is the tradition of the old to lead the new, or it may be said that the old players are given more opportunities. But in general, it also reflects the serious problems of the lack of ability of the young national table tennis players and the slow update speed. Now there is only one Fan Zhendong, and the other players behind him have some problems and have not met the requirements to replace the old players. This embarrassing situation is not good for the current national table tennis world. In the next few years, if this situation still exists, the national table tennis men will face even more severe tests!

Let’s talk about what role the wolf-raising plan has played in cultural development.

This project is a form of export of Chinese culture. Whether it is language output or thought output. When facing the output of the coaching team, the coach must learn the language and living habits of the other country. But in the teaching process, the coach will also appropriately export some of China's internal knowledge. For example, language, the best examples are Ishikawa Kasumi and Fukuhara Ai, they speak Chinese very well. Moreover, in the process of being invited, foreign players have a deeper understanding of Chinese in the melting pot of China. For example, Bol and Ocharov can understand Chinese. They also admitted this in interviews. They may not be able to speak well, but being able to understand it is already a manifestation of output. In addition, in terms of tactical thinking and technical application, the progress of foreign players is also obvious. For example, Calderano's in-stage technology is very delicate, and these are all traditional Chinese technologies. In terms of tactical thinking, many are also very Chinese, the most obvious one being Boll. The export of Chinese culture in this way also promotes the development of this sport and also encourages players in this sport to learn more Chinese.