China complete clean sweep

Linghui Kong beat the Swedish veteran for gold

By Paul Cohen, Sydney

China's total domination of the sport of table tennis was further enhanced at Sydney when they walked away with a clean sweep of the gold medals for the second consecutive Olympics.

As in Atlanta, the men's and women's singles and doubles titles went to the same nation.

It was only Swedish veteran Jan-Ove Waldner who prevented a full house of silver for China in Sydney as well.

The 1992 Olympic champion put up a valiant effort in the men's singles final against the number one seed Linghui Kong in the last table tennis match of the Games at the State Sports Centre.

Linghui, who had already won silver in the doubles, seemed to have the final won as he took the first two games in the best-of-five final.

But the 35-year-old Swede fought back and won the next two games to take the match into a decider.

Ascendancy

Linghui again rose into the ascendancy by taking a 10-1 lead but Waldner would not give up and clawed back the gap to four points at 13-9.

However he had left himself too much to do as the Chinese took gold with a 21-16 21-19 17-21 14-21 21-13 victory.

In the play-off for bronze there was another victory for China over Sweden with 1996 Olympic singles and doubles champion Liu Guoliang defeating Joergen Persson.

Liu, who partnered Linghui in the doubles in Atlanta and Sydney, took his second medal of the Games with a 21-18 19-21 21-14 21-13 win.

Linghui's success notched up China's 21st gold of the Games and they have become a real threat to the Americans in the race to head the medal table.