Kong Linghui

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Kong Linghui

Personal information
Full name:	Kong Linghui
Nationality:	China
Playing Style:	Shake hands grip
Date of birth:	October 18, 1975 (1975-10-18) (age 32)
Place of birth:	Heilongjiang, China

Medal record
Men's table tennis
Competitor for China
Olympic Games
Gold	1996 Atlanta	doubles
Gold	2000 Sydney	singles
Silver	2000 Sydney	doubles

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Kong.

Kong Linghui (simplified Chinese: 孔令辉; born on October 18, 1975 in Heilongjiang) is a male Chinese table tennis player who competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics, in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

In 1996 he won the gold medal in the men's doubles competition together with Liu Guoliang.

Four years later he won the gold medal in the men's singles competition and the silver medal in the doubles event again together with Liu Guoliang.

In 2004 he was eliminated in the third round of the men's doubles competition together with his new partner Wang Hao.

Kong's style was believed to be modeled on the top European players of the late 80s through to the late 90s, namely the Swedes Jan Ove Waldner and Jorgen Persson, who won the World Championships in Dortmund in 1989 and Chiba in 1991 respectively. They utilised the shakehand grip, and played consistent good all-round games characterised by playing close to mid distance from the table, equal on both backhand and forehand sides and being strong in both attack and containing - both players have excellent receive of service techniques and solid blocking games.

In China's attempt to shake the early 90s European male dominance of the sport - where players such as Saive (Belgium), Gatien (France) Waldner, Persson and Appelgren (Sweden) and Rosskopf (Germany) were dominating proceedings internationally, they sent the young Kong to Sweden in an unprecedented move to learn the European style of play. He arrived back in China in 1993, and shortly after was ranked world no.1 as of December 1993.

Kong is considered one of the all time greats of table tennis and has now taken up position as the China National Female Team head coach.