Liu Song (table tennis)

In this Chinese name, the family name is Liu.

Liu Song (simplified Chinese: 刘松; traditional Chinese: 劉松; pinyin: Liú Sōng) is a male table tennis player from Argentina. From 1998 to 2011 he won several medals in singles, doubles, and team events in the Latin American Table Tennis Championships.^[1]

Liu Song
Full name	Liu Song
Nationality	Argentina
Born	12 May 1972 Guangxi, China
Height	1,70 m
Weight	60 kg (132 lb)
Medal record Men's table tennis Representing  Argentina Pan American Games 2011 Guadalajara Single 1999 Winnipeg Single 1999 Winnipeg Team 2007 Rio de Janeiro Single 2007 Rio de Janeiro Team 2011 Guadalajara Team 2003 Santo Domingo Single 2003 Santo Domingo Doubles Latin American Table Tennis Cup San Jose 2012 Singles Rio de Janeiro 2011 Singles Latin American Championships 1998 Mexico City Singles 2003 El Salvador Singles 2004 Valvidia Doubles 2005 Punta Del Este Doubles 2006 Medellin Singles 2006 Medellin Team 2007 Guarulhos Singles 2008 Santo Domingo Doubles 2010 Cancun Singles 2011 Guadalajara Doubles 2000 Coquimbo Singles 2000 Coquimbo Team 2003 El Salvador Doubles 2004 Valvidia Team 2005 Punta Del Este Singles 2005 Punta Del Este Team 2006 Medellin Doubles 2007 Guarulhos Doubles 2007 Guarulhos Team 2008 Santo Domingo Team 2010 Cancun Team 1998 Mexico City Doubles 2000 Coquimbo Doubles 2002 Santo Domingo Singles 2004 Valvidia Singles 2008 Santo Domingo Singles

Biography

Personal life

Born in Guangxi, China he started practising table tennis at the age of nine. He studied in a special school for athletes and reached eighth place in China's national ranking.^[2] Between 1990 and 1994 he was a part of China's national team, and he won the national junior single's championship in 1991. In 1986 he started studying marketing in the University of Tokyo, although he dropped it after a year after deciding to go to Argentina. That's why it is said^{[by whom?]} that Liu has three nationalities (Chinese, Argentinian and Japanese). In 1990 his family moved to Argentina, living in Floresta, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires city, where they opened a laundry. Five years later, Song followed his family. He adopted Argentinian nationality, the country that he always represented at international level, and he started training in the Centro Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo.

International career

His first big accomplishment was in 1995 in Brazil's Open; in 1996 he reached the semi-finals of the US Open, in the United States. He won all the Argentinian championships between 1995 and 2001, but in 1997 he started to alternate his place of residence between Argentina and Europe to play professionally. In the season of 1997/98 he was the team's champion in Germany's second division; after that he played in Croatia, where he was the team's champion in the first division in 1999 and 2001, and he won the European Championship team's in 2000 and 2001 playing for Zagreb. Then he went to Bordeaux, France, where he lives since 2001, playing for local team SAG Cestas in France's first division.^[3] Liu won the bronze medal in the 2011 Latin American Cup held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after being defeated by Brazil's Gustavo Tsuboi 4–3.^[4] Almost at the end of his career, being 39 years old, he won the singles' gold medal at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, by beating Mexico's Marcos Madrid in the final.

See also

• List of table tennis players

References

1. "ITTF_Database". Ittf.com. Archived from the original on 8 July 2010. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
2. "Liu Song, un relato de amor por el ping pong y la Argentina – canchallena.com". La Nación. Canchallena.lanacion.com.ar. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
3. manu. "Song LIU". Sagctt.fr. Archived from the original on 31 October 2010. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
4. "Success Against Traditional Rivals but Mixed Fortunes for Brazil". ITTF. 19 March 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2012.

External links

• Liu Song at Olympedia