Jing Junhong

At 56 years old, Jing Junhong has this physical status:

By 1992, Jing was representing Singapore at international table tennis competitions. Her first event representing Singapore was that year's Vietnam Golden Racket Championships, which she won. The following year, Jing was selected to represent Singapore at the 1993 World Table Tennis Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. At the event, she beat then top ranked player and Olympic champion Deng Yaping of China. In 1995, Jing represented Singapore at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, where she took second behind Hong Kong's Chai Po Wa, and at the 1995 Southeast Asian Games. At the Southeast Asian Games, she won the singles and mixed doubles events, and came in second in the women's doubles event.

Jing represented Singapore in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where she competed in the Women's singles event. She swept her group, winning all three of her matches (against Kim Hyang-Mi, Xu Jing, and Petra Cada), but exited in the round of 16 after losing to China's Qiao Hong. For her Olympic performance, one of the best to that point in Singapore's history, Jing was named 1997 Sportswoman of the Year. The following year, Jing again competed in the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, winning the single, double, and team events, and earning a second consecutive Sportswoman of the Year award. She continued collecting medals in the following years, taking a singles title at the 1997 Southeast Asian Games and two doubles and a team title at the 1999 Southeast Asian Games.

In the 2000 Summer Olympics, Jing competed in both the singles and doubles events, the latter alongside Li Jiawei. In the singles event, Jing again swept her group, beating Karen Li and Sofija Tepes. She then defeated Sun Jin, Lijuan Geng, and Mihaela Steff to reach the semifinals, where she was defeated by Li Ju. In the bronze medal game, she lost to Chen Jing. In the doubles event, Jing and Li started in the round of 16, where they were defeated by Eldijana Bentsen and Tamara Boroš of Croatia. Jing again won the Sportswoman of the Year award for her Olympic performance. Following the 2000 Olympics, Jing was ranked 12th in the world by the International Table Tennis Federation.

In between the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games, Jing won medals at the 2001 and 2003 Southeast Asian Games, and at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. At the 2004 Olympic Games, Jing again competed in both the singles and doubles events, reprising her partnership with Li Jiawei in the doubles. Jing and Li began the doubles event in the round of 16, where they were defeated by South Korean team Kim Kyung-Ah and Kim Bok Rae. In the singles event, Jing began in the second round, where she defeated Silvija Erdelji of Serbia, but was knocked out by Kim Hyon-Hui of North Korea in the third round. Jing retired as a player that year.

Coaching career

Jing became the assistant coach of the Singapore women's table tennis team in 2009. She was on the coaching team in the 2012 Summer Olympics when Singapore won two bronze medals, an individual medal by Feng Tianwei and a team medal by Feng Tianwei, Wang Yuegu and Li Jiawei, Jing's former partner.

In 2013, Jing was promoted to head coach, and won the Singapore Table Tennis Association's Coach of the Year award in 2013 and 2014. Under Jing's leadership, the women's team won six gold medals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and Feng picked up victories at International Table Tennis Federation events in Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. The women's team also won three third-place medals at the 2014 Asian Games.

In November 2015, following a public dispute with player Yu Mengyu at the International Table Tennis Federation Polish Open and a request by Yu and Feng for a coaching change, Jing Junhong was replaced as the head coach of the women's team. Jing was instead put in charge of several of the Singapore Table Tennis Association's youth development programs, with oversight over both the programs and their coaches.

Source