Australian Olympic medal hopeful takes legal action over seven-year ban

Backed by Table Tennis Australia in her challenge to the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, Liu is said to be claiming her Olympic ambitions have been cruelled by a technicality and that the clock should have run for her not in 2022 but in 2020. It was in that year that Table Tennis Australia registered it with the ITTF, but due to an apparent administrative failure it took two years for the registration to be recognized by the table tennis controlling entity, which is also headquartered in Switzerland.

Crucially, had she started her imposed timeout from major competitions in 2020, she would still have been under 18 and would have had to wait five years instead of seven, making her available to take the green from 2025 and wear gold.

That alternate timeline means that even if she wins on the legal front, Liu still wouldn't be able to join the Australian Olympic team in Paris.

But her predicament highlights one of the most difficult barriers naturalized athletes face in individual sports.

Under the Olympic Charter, athletes only need to be nationals of a country to represent that country at the Olympic Games, or wait three years if they have already represented another country, which can be waived. But sports federations' own entry requirements may also apply to Olympic competition, and table tennis's version of protectionism, introduced in 2018, is one of them.

The provisions do not specifically refer to China, where table tennis is the national sport. But Chinese players outside the national team have migrated to other flags over the years in such abundance that they were the subject of an academic study published last year.

The newspaper, published by Dutch professor Gijsbert Oonk and masters student Alexander Oonksaid that of the 811 athletes who played table tennis at the Olympics since they were first held in Seoul in 1988, 127 were Chinese-born players representing other countries.

They sought opportunities elsewhere as local competition was fierce to play for China, which has won 32 of the 37 Olympic gold medals awarded since then, and 60 of the 115 medals.

It is not a problem. It's a problem, then ITTF president Thomas Weikert said in a 2016 interview with The New York Times, which showed that 31 percent of table tennis athletes at that year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro represented countries other than the one in which they were born. The percentage was more than double that of the next sport, basketball.

Before Liu, Australia was already a destination for others, with ten Chinese-born players competing for the country in the Olympics, and Table Tennis Australia has its own migration support policy that covers migration requests from players and coaches abroad.

Loading

Liu was ranked outside the world's top 500 players when she arrived in Australia, initially on a student visa, then settled in Sydney before moving to Melbourne, where the national team trains.

Within three years she had cracked the top 50 and was a real rising star, topping it all off with two bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games, which are not subject to ITTF waiting periods.

This masthead was told that Liu was also unable to respond because a hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport was pending. But a page on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe to raise money for her cause says her Olympic dreams have stalled due to administrative hurdles imposed by the International Federation.

Yangzi Liu, with the support of Table Tennis Australia, is seeking legal action to rectify this decision and ensure Yangzi is given the opportunity to represent Australia at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 and beyond, according to an appeal for funds to collect on the page that was posted anonymously.

The ITTF and Table Tennis Australia were contacted for comment.

News, results and expert analyzes from the sports weekend are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sports Newsletter.