Drinkhall raring to make more history as Olympics get underway

The 26-year-old is the first British table tennis player in action at these Games – his first round men's singles clash on Saturday evening takes place at the Riocentro pavilion and pits him against either Aleksandar Karakasevic from Serbia or Xin Yan from Australia, who face off in the preliminary round.

Drinkhall qualified a men's singles spot – alongside his compatriot Liam Pitchford who goes on Sunday – by virtue of his world ranking.

In addition to that historic achievement, Drinkhall also won the Rio Test event last year so understandably optimism is high for Team GB table tennis. It's great to be there by right, through the ranking, I'm very proud and I'm sure Liam (Pitchford) is too, both for ourselves and the sport," he said.

"In the last four years my game has come on a lot and come on a long way, a lot of different ups and downs but I think I've come out stronger for it. Personally the mental side of my game has improved a lot more from where it was in London and I think that will really help to get some good results in Rio.

"I don't know for sure, but hopefully having won the test event will help a lot. Seeing the place, I will be familiar with it. I didn't see a lot of Rio but I saw where the village was, where the venue is going to be, they're pretty close together.

"I'll try and use that as much as possible and I will feel comfortable with the travelling, I'll know what it going on, so hopefully it can really help."

Drinkhall and Pitchford were in the British team that grabbed an historic bronze in the team event at the World Championships in March of this year.

But if they are to challenge for Olympic medals they will need to break the Chinese stranglehold. Since the sport's introduction to the Games in 1988 – China have won 24 of the 28 gold medals dished out and over half the total medals. But Drinkhall hopes a changing of the guard is on the horizon.

"Being part of Team GB in 2012 will really help with the experience going into Rio and hopefully that will prove the difference," he added.

"The sport has been going in the right direction for a few years now, with the bronze medal at the world team championships that was fantastic and hopefully we can continue that into Rio. We knew that if everything went well and our way then we could be up there with the best teams. We believed that it could happen.

"I'm here (in Rio) to do my best, I know that's easy to say but it's really true and hopefully if everything clicks then we can be up there with the big boys like we were in the world championships at the team event. Both myself and Liam are capable of that in the singles and hopefully I will put that into place and get things right."

Sportsbeat 2016