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Table-tennis legend Jean-Michel Saive, who is a household name in Belgium, was re-elected to the National Olympic Committee there.
Saive has been European Men’s Singles Champion, World Men’s Singles Finalist, and a 7-time Olympian.
Saive was recently running for the office of the ITTF President but lost out to Thomas Weikert in the election that took place at the World Championships last week. Weikert apparently had some disagreements with former President Adham Sharara that became public prior to the election. I think it would have been good for the sport to have a former player as ITTF President to look out for the interests of the players. Players have said that the ITTF does not ask them before making any rule changes which are supposed to be for the players and directly affect the players. The ball used at the Rio Olympics apparently was a poor quality ball that many top players complained about.
Saive was part of the funniest match of all-time with World Doubles Champion Chuan Chih-Yuan (MUST SEE!):
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