2026, and history writes him in again

In January 2026, the ITTF released its centenary honours list, and the name Jan-Ove Waldner appeared on it.

Ten years had passed since he officially put down his racket in 2016. Forty-six years since he first came to China.

At fifteen, he came to China

Waldner was born in Stockholm on October 3, 1965; his father was a printer, his mother a shop clerk.

In 1980, the 15-year-old was invited with a teammate to Shanghai, where he trained alongside Chinese players for several weeks. He would retell those weeks for the rest of his life — it was his first real lesson in what “hard work” meant: China was the world champion then, and if you wanted a title you had to beat them, so he watched intently how the Chinese trained, how they played.

Those six weeks of training shaped his entire career.

At the 1983 World Championships in Tokyo, the 18-year-old met the 22-year-old Cai Zhenhua. They leveled eight times in the deciding game; Cai won it 30:28. The blond, blue-eyed Swedish teenager had become China’s biggest headache.

A sentence spoken in 1987

At the 1987 World Championships in New Delhi, Waldner swept past the Chinese stars Chen Longcan and Teng Yi into the men’s singles final, where he faced the “Prince of Chinese table tennis,” Jiang Jialiang.

He took the first game; Jiang came back to win 3:1, and Waldner settled for silver.

Afterwards, the young man left behind a line that has been quoted ever since:

“Jiang Jialiang taught me a lot. But he’ll never beat me again.”

Not a boast. Two years later, at the 1989 World Championships in Dortmund, he led Sweden to a 5:0 rout of China in the men’s team final and took the Swaythling Cup; then he beat his teammate Jörgen Persson in the singles final for his first world title, and reached world No. 1 for the first time.

The gold in Barcelona

The 1992 Barcelona Olympics were the summit of Waldner’s career.

Semifinal: a 3:0 demolition of the Korean great Kim Taek-soo. Final: France’s Jean-Philippe Gatien. 21:10, 21:18, 25:23 — three straight games.

That men’s singles gold was Sweden’s first Olympic table tennis medal of any color. And with it, he became the first player ever to hold singles titles at the Olympics, the World Championships and the World Cup — the first Grand Slam winner in table tennis history.

His nights against the Chinese team

Lao Wa’s match history is practically a chronicle of Chinese men’s table tennis.

Manchester 1997: a performance of near-total domination — seven matches without dropping a single game, a 3:0 semifinal over Yan Sen, a 3:0 final over Samsonov. Nobody laid a glove on him all week.

Sydney 2000: in the semifinal he met Liu Guoliang — his “bogey man,” six head-to-head losses without a win. This time he won 3:0, the most cathartic match of his career. In the final he faced Kong Linghui: down 0:2, he pulled back two games, then lost 2:3 and took silver. That “match of the century” is, for many fans, the ceiling of the sport.

Athens 2004: at 39 years old, he and his old partner Persson beat Kong Linghui and Wang Hao in the doubles, then took out Ma Lin 4:1 in the singles round of 16 and Timo Boll 4:1 in the quarterfinal, all the way to the semifinals. A man approaching forty, knocking over world champions in their prime, one after another.

From Cai Zhenhua, Jiang Jialiang and Chen Longcan, to Wang Tao and Ma Wenge, to Kong Linghui and Liu Guoliang, and on to Wang Liqin and Ma Lin — by himself, he went through six generations of China’s best players.

Former world champion Wang Tao put it vividly:

“He fought six generations of Chinese players. Win or lose, as long as he stood at the table, he was a monument.”

A second home called China

In China, Waldner has a warmer name — “Lao Wa,” “Old Wa.”

After retiring from the top level he opened a bar in Beijing’s Sanlitun district. Its most regular customers: Kong Linghui and Liu Guiliang. His fiercest rivals became his best drinking buddies. Asked which beer he liked best, he answered without a beat: “Tsingtao! Tsingtao beer, of course!”

He has called China his second home — because any auntie on the street can call him by name.

On February 11, 2016, at 50, he played the last two league matches of his career in Stockholm and officially retired. “My career has truly been enough,” he said. “I’m old now.”

A closing thought

The luckiest thing a sport can have is an opponent strong enough.

Lao Wa’s value was never just the titles. It was what forty years proved: real rivals make each other.

He forced Chinese table tennis to keep evolving, and he taught Chinese fans a respect that outgrew winning and losing and turned into something particular: hoping he wouldn’t win — while dreading the day he’d leave.

Full profile: Jan-Ove Waldner. Rivals and comrades of his generation: Cai Zhenhua, Jiang Jialiang, Jörgen Persson. The 1992 singles title he won came at only the second Games with table tennis on the program — see 38 years of Olympic table tennis.