Table tennis Olympic and world champion Zhang Jike is set to train under a new coach after the Chinese national team announced Thursday to make the most changes in a decade to its coaching staff.

 

乒乓球奥运冠军以及世界冠军张继科将在新教练指导下进行训练，中国乒乓球国家队周四宣布对其教练队伍进行一次大变动。
 

 

Having worked with the Grand Slam¹ winner for eight straight years, Zhang's previous coach Xiao Zhan will turn to train the Chinese women's team, leaving the injury-hit 29-year-old further unsettled.

 

Zhang, who had many reasons to thank Xiao for helping² him turn from no one to The One at the star-studded Chinese team, had his left foot wrenched³ at the end of last year while shooting for a television show.

 

He was forced out of last February's Qater Open before pulling out from the Chinese team's trials for the World Table Tennis Championships, scheduled to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany in May, due to a foot injury.

 

Xiao, 49, has been a high-level table tennis coach for 25 years, most of which was in provincial⁴ and national team. Under his discipline, Zhang set a record of collecting titles of Olympic Games, world championships and World Cup in just 445 days.

 

It was also because of Xiao who helped Zhang bottom out after the Shandong native lost motivation to play table tennis in post-London Olympic Games period.

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