GB ladies team out
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ByEurosport
Updated 03/08/2012 at 18:35 GMT
Great Britain crashed out of the women’s team table tennis competition at the London 2012 Olympics after a whitewash defeat against North Korea in the first round.
North Korea's Kim Jong (R) and Ri Gyong-mi play Britain's Kelly Sibley and Joanna Parker in their women's team first round table tennis match at the ExCel venue during the London 2012 Olympic Games (Reuters)
Image credit: Reuters
Joanna Parker slipped to a 3-1 loss in the opening match against Myong Sun Ri, with the North Korean looking stronger when the referee called for expedite mode.
Fellow Brit Na Liu was on the wrong end of a 3-0 encounter against Jong Kim, before Kelly Sibley and Parker were dispatched 3-0 in 17 minutes by Ri and Kim.
Commonwealth Games 2010 bronze medallist Parker – making her Games debut – rued missed chances and revealed her disappointment at the loss.
“I had such a good chance,” she said. “I wanted to go to expedite and I felt like she didn’t want to. I’ve trained for that. It takes a hell of a lot of work to force that. But it didn’t work out.
“I need to work on my smash. I’m already working hard on my smash. I can see that the way the game is going, a defensive strategy isn’t enough.”
Sibley – who was part of the England team with Parker that finished fourth at the Commonwealth Games in 2010 – revealed her heartache at not carrying out what they have been training for.
“I’m gutted at the moment. We’ve been training for this for such a long time,” she said. “It’s how they (Chinese coaches] treat them [Chinese trainee players] as well.
“We were playing a couple of years ago in a centre in Shanghai. Someone was playing and the coach just went up and kicked him in the side.”
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