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A podium sweep is where a team or nation comes in first, second and third, such as at the Olympics, and wins all available medals, which are recognized by a podium ceremony. The word sweep is commonly used in North American sports such as baseball, basketball, cricket and ice hockey which have playoff or regular season series, to describe a situation where one team wins all the games in a series, for example, with a 4–0 victory in a best-of-seven series.
The term is also used in a broader sense when a country, team or athlete wins all possible prizes in a competition. [1] At the highest level, that would be when one nation wins all the medals in the Olympics.
To encourage competition, some event organizers or federations implement rules to prevent podium sweeps. At the 2008 Olympic Games, China won all six medals at the singles events in Table Tennis, across both genders. Following this, the ITTF limited each country at the Olympics to entering a maximum of two contestants per gender in the singles competition, thereby ensuring that no country could win more than four of the six medals available. [2] [3]
The 1976 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event held in Innsbruck, Austria, from 4 to 15 February 1976. A total of 1,123 athletes representing 37 National Olympic Committees (NOC) participated in 37 events from 10 different sports and disciplines. Two events were contested for the first time: the figure skating discipline of ice dancing, and the men's 1,000 metres in speed skating.
Table tennis competition has been in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988, with singles and doubles events for men and women. Athletes from China have dominated the sport, winning a total of 66 medals in 42 events, including 37 out of a possible 42 gold medals, and only failing to win at least one medal in one event, the inaugural men's singles event at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
Singapore has sent athletes to the celebration of the Olympic Games since 1948, when it was established as a separate British crown colony from the Straits Settlements just over three months before the commencement of the 1948 Summer Olympics. It continued to send a team to the Games until 1964 when the Singaporean delegation competed with Malaysia, which sent a combined team.
China's participation in the Olympic games is relatively recent. The People's Republic of China sent its first full athletic delegation to the Summer Olympic Games in the 1984 Summer Olympics which was held in Los Angeles, United States.
Tennis competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were held from August 10 to August 17 at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre. The DecoTurf surface rendered the event a hardcourt tournament.
Canada has sent athletes to every Winter Olympic Games and every Summer Olympic Games since its debut at the 1900 games with the exception of the 1980 Summer Olympics, which it boycotted along with the USA and other countries. Canada has won at least one medal at every Olympics in which it has competed. The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) is the National Olympic Committee for Canada.
Russia's Elena Dementieva defeated compatriot Dinara Safina in the final, 3–6, 7–5, 6–3 to win the gold medal in Women's Singles tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In the bronze medal match, Russia's Vera Zvonareva defeated China's Li Na 6–0, 7–5. This was the first Olympic medal sweep in tennis since 1908, when three British women won medals in the outdoor women's singles tournament. It was the fifth podium sweep in tennis in Olympic history, all previous sweeps were by British athletes. It was Russia's first victory in the women's singles. Dementieva became the third woman to win multiple Olympic singles medals, following Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, and the first to do so in non-consecutive Games.
Feng Tianwei is a Singaporean retired table tennis player. Born in China, she permanently moved to Singapore in March 2007 at the age of 20 under the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme and commenced her international career in competitive table tennis the following month.
Wang Yuegu is a retired Chinese-born Singaporean table tennis player who was ranked among the top ten players in the world. Wang made her inaugural appearance as a Singaporean table tennis player on the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Pro Tour in June 2005 at the Volkswagen Korean Open in Suncheon, South Korea, where she and Sun Beibei took the silver medal in the women's doubles. On 24 September 2006, Wang achieved her first gold medal on the Pro Tour at the Japan Open in Yokohama. She repeated the feat against her compatriot Li Jiawei on 12 November at the ITTF Pro Tour German Open in Bayreuth. In June 2007, Wang helped Singapore sweep the women's team, women's doubles and mixed doubles gold trophies at the 17th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in Jaipur.
The 2009 H.I.S. World Table Tennis Championships were held in Yokohama, Japan, from 28 April to 5 May 2009. The Chinese team dominated the competition, following their sweep of the gold medals in table tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics. It was the tenth world table tennis championships at which China won all five available titles.
The People's Republic of China, the previous host of the 2008 Olympics at Beijing, competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the United Kingdom, between 27 July and 12 August 2012. This was the nation's ninth appearance at the Summer Olympics since its debut in 1952. A total of 396 Chinese athletes, 171 men and 225 women, were selected by the Chinese Olympic Committee to compete in 23 sports. For the fourth time in its Olympic history, China was represented by more female than male athletes.
Table tennis at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London took place from Saturday 28 July to Wednesday 8 August 2012 at ExCeL London. 174 athletes, 86 men and 88 women, competed in four events. Table tennis has appeared at the Summer Olympics on six previous occasions beginning with the 1988 Games in Seoul. In addition to men's and women's singles, the team events were staged for the second time since replacing doubles events at the 2008 Beijing Games. China was the defending champion in each of the Olympic events having won all 4 gold medals in 2008.
Liam Benjamin Pitchford is an English table tennis player. He is sponsored by Victas.
Speed skating at the 2014 Winter Olympics was held at the Adler Arena, Sochi, Russia, between 8 and 22 February 2014.
The Netherlands competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia from 7 to 23 February 2014. The Dutch team was the largest Dutch delegation at a Winter Olympics, with 41 competitors that participated in bobsleigh, short track speed skating, snowboarding, and speed skating.
Chinese Taipei competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. "Chinese Taipei" is the designated name used by Taiwan to participate in some international organizations and almost all sporting events, including the Olympic Games. Neither the common name "Taiwan" nor the official name "Republic of China" would be used due primarily to opposition from the People's Republic of China. This was also the region's ninth consecutive appearance at the Summer Olympics.
Grand Slam (GS) is a term used by fans of figure skating for the winning all three major annual senior-level international competitions within a single season within one of the four disciplines: men's singles, women's singles, pairs, and ice dance. Winning all three major annual senior-level international competitions at any point during the course of a career is called a "Career Grand Slam". In pair skating and ice dancing, one team may accomplish a Career Grand Slam skating together or one skater may achieve it with different partners.
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event held in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February. A total of 2,871 athletes from 91 nations participated in 109 events in seven sports across 15 disciplines.
The table tennis tournaments at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris ran from 27 July to 10 August at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. A total of 175 table tennis players, with an equal distribution between men and women, competed across five medal events at these Games, the exact same amount as those in the previous editions. After a successful tournament during the 2020 Summer Olympics, the mixed doubles event remained in the table tennis program for the second time at the Olympics.