Rong Guotuan (; August 10, 1937 – June 20, 1968) was a Chinese

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

player. He won the men's singles title at the 1959

World Table Tennis Championships The World Table Tennis Championships are table tennis competitions sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The World Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men ...

in Dortmund, the first world championship winner representing the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, Rong was persecuted as a "spy suspect". He committed suicide on June 20, 1968.

Early years

Rong Guotuan was born in

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

in 1937, with family roots from

Zhuhai Zhuhai (, ; Yale: ''Jyūhói''), also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, on the southeastern edge of Pearl ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

Province, China. He started playing table tennis in his childhood and participated in competitions in Hong Kong as a junior. In 1957, Rong decided to move to Mainland China. He won national champion in the following year and was later selected as a member of the national team.

Playing career

Rong's participation in the

began in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

, 1959. Chinese men's team faced Hungary at the semifinals of the team competition. Rong lost to

Zoltán Berczik Zoltán Berczik (7 August 1937 – 11 January 2011) was a Hungarian table tennis player. In the late fifties he was ranked among the best European table tennis players and won, with his athletic play, the first two titles at the Table Tennis Eur ...

, the 1958 European champion, in three games. He defeated Laszlo Foldy but lost to the 1953 World Championships winner

Ferenc Sidó Ferenc Sidó (18 April 1923 in Pata – 6 February 1998 in Budapest) was an ethnic Hungarian international table tennis player from Slovakia. Table tennis career From 1947 to 1961 he won 26 medals in singles, doubles, and team events in the Wor ...

at the eighth team match. The Chinese team was defeated by Hungary, 3–5. In men's singles competition, Rong recorded seven straight wins to clinch the men's world championship. He became the first world championship winner after the foundation of the

(PRC). The first table tennis ball Double Happiness (DHS, ) made in China for international competitions was named after Rong's victory at the Championships and the tenth anniversary of the PRC's establishment in 1959. At the 1961 World Table Tennis Championships in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, Rong helped Chinese men's team win the first team title by defeating Japan and Hungary in the finals. After 1964, he worked as the coach of Chinese women's team. The women's team won their first champion at the 1965 World Championships.

Cultural Revolution and suicide

The

initiated in 1966 caused professional sportsmen to be denounced as "sprouts of revisionism" and the Chinese team were absent from the 1967 World Championships. Rong Guotuan and other members of the national team, Fu Qifang and Jiang Yongning, were placed under house arrest by

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

. They were each condemned on trumped-up charges of spying and subjected to torture and public humiliation. Fu and Jiang committed suicide after sustained periods of detention and torture in 1968. Rong hanged himself on June 20 in the same year. His suicide note read, "I am not a spy; please do not suspect me. I have let you down. I treasure my reputation more than my life." In 1978, the State Physical Culture and Sports Commission rehabilitated Rong Guotuan's honor. In 1987, a bronze statue of Rong was built in his ancestral home, Zhuhai.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rong, Guotuan 1937 births 1968 deaths Chinese male table tennis players Hong Kong male table tennis players Suicides during the Cultural Revolution World Table Tennis Championships medalists Suicides by hanging in China

Early years

Playing career

Cultural Revolution and suicide

See also

References