Table tennis
21st World Cup at the age of 42: Timo Boll attacks again
Doesn’t want to go to the Olympic Games in Paris as a substitute player: Timo Boll. photo
© Tom Weller/dpa
Finally beating the Chinese: That’s what Timo Boll and the German table tennis team definitely want to achieve at the World Cup in South Korea. But at 42, Boll has a completely different goal.
Since then, humanity has invented the smartphone, dating portals and a new Mars robot. But what hardly anyone knows is a way to defeat China at a major table tennis tournament. The German team alone has lost six World Cup and two Olympic finals against this opponent since Boll began his career. Finally making it on possibly the ninth attempt is a strong motivation for Boll to compete again at the Team World Championships from February 16th to 25th in South Korea. At the age of 42 years and eleven months, it is already his 21st World Cup tournament.
Does he really believe in this one great day again? “That’s a given,” Boll told the German Press Agency. “I also lost in singles against world champion Fan Zhendong nine times in a row. And yet every time you go back into the game and try to find a way or a solution.”
Remarkable comeback
The German players have a little hope that the Chinese are just as annoyed and stressed as they are by the many tournaments and various competitions in table tennis. And that the record European champion Boll has made another remarkable comeback at almost 43.
In 2023 he was out for several months due to a complicated shoulder injury. Boll has been injured several times in his career. But nothing has set him back as much as this time out. “It was a very rocky process, I felt: I had lost my instinct, I only worked on table tennis because every shot and every technique was no longer correct,” he says. “But as a competitive athlete you become this work machine over the years. I had a good head to stay persistent and get through it.”
This January, “the knot burst,” as he himself calls it. Boll won the German Cup with his club Borussia Düsseldorf and the international tournament in Doha. And above all: The four-time world number one beat scores of top 15 players such as Lin Yun-Ju (Taiwan), Tomokazu Harimoto (Japan) and Darko Jorgic (Slovenia), some of whom are more than 20 years younger than him. “These players also have in their heads: Timo Boll is still there,” says his teammate Dimitrij Ovtcharov. “This presence makes a huge difference.”
Boll himself describes his drive as follows: “I wanted to prove it to myself again.” And he adds quite openly: “I was also afraid of having to stop. At the age of 42, no one would have been angry with me. I wouldn’t have had to justify myself to anyone. But it wasn’t the right moment for me. I wanted it would like to delay again.”
Goal: Olympics in Paris
If everything goes as Boll wants, he will be world champion for the first time in Busan in February and will be going to the Olympic Games for the seventh time in his career in July. However, being there in Paris is the next big challenge for him after returning to the top of the world. Because of the five German World Cup players – Boll, Ovtcharov, individual European champion Dang Qiu and the former European team champions Patrick Franziska and Benedikt Duda – only three can also be part of the Olympic team.
In concrete terms, this means that five long-term training partners and some close friends will not only be teammates but also competitors at the World Championships. Because every one of them also wants to go to the Olympics. “There’s a certain amount of pressure on everyone. You can hardly afford to slip up. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” says Boll. “With a view to the Olympics, this competition helps us to push ourselves and keep going.”
As much as the German flag bearer from 2016 would like to compete at the Olympic Games again and as much as this goal has spurred him on in recent months, Boll had already announced before the World Cup that he would not go to Paris as a substitute player. “I only want to play if I have the feeling that I can achieve something. I don’t want to take away anyone’s place just to be there,” he says. “Then it would be better for a younger player who has not yet experienced the Olympics to have the experience.”