Table Tennis Preview

Table tennis has a longer history in the Paralympic Games than it does in the Olympic Games, and it boasts the third largest number of competing athletes behind only track and field and swimming. Table tennis was one of eight sports on the original Paralympic program at the Paralympic Games Rome 1960, whereas the Olympic program only began including table tennis at Seoul 1988. Table tennis at the 1960 Games had 11 medal events, and all were for athletes in wheelchairs. Events for standing players were added in 1976, and the Paralympic program now has 31 medal events.

Athletes are classified into classes from 1-11, with classes 1-5 being wheelchair athletes, 6-10 covering standing athletes and 11 distinguishing athletes with intellectual impairments. Matches are played to 11, and most of the rules regarding gameplay are the same as Olympic table tennis. One major rules difference is the tossing of the ball to serve, which offers other options for athletes of different abilities.

Team USA owns 51 medals in Paralympic table tennis, good for 10th all time. But the U.S. has been shut out of the medal stand since 2004, when Tahl Leibovitz earned a bronze medal in men’s singles. Leibovitz will return for a sixth Paralympic Games in Tokyo, and the 46-year-old will be joined by a pair of athletes not yet born when he made his Paralympic debut in 1996. A pair of 20-year-olds, Ian Seidenfeld and Jenson Van Emburgh, will be making their Paralympic debuts.

Leibovitz became the first U.S. table tennis player to qualify for Tokyo 2020 when he won gold in men’s singles at the 2019 Parapan American Games. Van Emburgh and Seidenfeld won singles silver medals, though Seidenfeld’s was later upgraded to gold. Seidenfeld qualified for Tokyo directly based off his performance, while Van Emburgh qualified based off his world ranking in Class 3.

Table tennis competition at the Games will take place in the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium Aug. 25-Sep. 3.

Updated on July 20, 2021. For more information, contact the sport press officer.

Can anyone catch China? China has by far the most Paralympic table tennis medals and was dominant in Rio, winning 21 medals, 13 of them gold.

With decades of experience in the sport, you could say Tahl Leibovitz wrote the book on table tennis. In fact, he literally did. Leibovitz also works as a social worker in New York City.
USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Tahl Leibovitz shows no signs of slowing down as he prepares for his sixth Paralympic Games. He earned his first Paralympic medal, and only gold medal, at Atlanta 1996 and has dominated the Parapan American Games the past 15 years, racking up a whopping 17 medals in both men’s team and singles events.  

Seidenfeld is a familiar name to anyone who has followed Paralympic table tennis. Ian’s father Mitchell is a four-time Paralympic medalist, including winning a gold medal at Barcelona in 1992. Mitchell is now his son’s coach. After initially winning silver in his Parapan American Games debut in 2019, Ian was later awarded the men’s singles C6 gold medal after a Chilean athlete failed a drug test.

Jenson Van Emburgh won his first Parapans medal in 2019 by taking silver in men’s singles C3. A member of the U.S. junior para national team for nine years, Van Emburgh made his senior world championships debut in 2018.
August 25, 2021: Paralympic competition begins with qualifications in men’s and women’s singles
August 28, 2021: Finals in men’s (3, 6, 9) and women’s (1-2, 11) singles
August 29, 2021: Finals in men’s (5, 7, 10, 11) and women’s (3, 4, 5, 8) singles
August 30, 2021: Finals in men’s (1, 2, 4, 8) and women’s (6, 7, 9, 10) singles
August 31, 2021: Men’s and women’s team competition begins
September 2, 2021: Finals in men’s (3, 4-5, 8) and women’s (1-3, 6-8) team
September 3, 2021: Finals in men’s (1-2, 6-7, 9-10) and women’s (4-5, 9-10) team