Singles, Men

For the singles, each nation was allowed to register two athletes from the respective team competition. An additional 22 qualified through continental qualifying tournaments. There was also the possibility of qualifying in an international qualification tournament. Also, the best placed athlete in the ITTF world rankings who had not yet qualified received a quota place.

Defending Olympic champion, China’s Ma Long, was only nominated for the team event, and therefore the main favorites for the singles were the world No.1 Wang Chuqin, and the reigning world champion and runner-up from the previous Olympics, Fan Zhendong, also of China (ranked No.4 in the world).

Surprisingly, Wang lost to world No.26, Sweden’s Truls Möregårdh, in the Round of 32, who at the end of the competition finished in second place to end Sweden’s 24-year medal drought. The bronze medal went to the 18-year-old French shooting star Félix Lebrun, who became the youngest-ever singles medalist in Olympic table tennis history. Since 1992, it was only the second time that two European athletes finished in a medal position, when three of the medalists, like Paris 2024, were also from Sweden, France, and China.

All three individual medalists in Paris won the exact same medals in the team event. The 43-year-old German Timo Boll joined Jörgen Persson, Zoran Primorac, Segun Toriola, and Jean-Michel Saive by participating in his record seventh Olympics.