Li Ching MH (born 7 March 1975 in Doumen, Guangdong) is a retired Hong Kong table tennis player and the current head coach of the Hong Kong team. He began playing at the age of six and was selected for the Chinese national team in 1990; a runner-up finish in the men's singles at the 1992 national championships earned him promotion to the first national squad. His coaches once had him switch from the penhold to the shakehand grip because of his height, making him the only Chinese player at the time to make such a change, but his results fell and he returned to the penhold grip in 1994. He left the national team in 1997 citing his physical condition and moved to Hong Kong in 1999, where he formed a doubles partnership with Ko Lai-chak; the pair became known to the media as the 'ping-pong twins'. At the 2004 Athens Olympics the two fought through the men's doubles draw and lost the final 2-4 to China's Ma Lin and Chen Qi, taking silver, Hong Kong's first Olympic medal after the 1997 handover and the territory's first men's medal at the Games. At the 2006 Doha Asian Games they beat China's Wang Hao and Ma Long before defeating Ma Lin and Chen Qi in the final to win gold, while Li also reached the semi-finals of the men's singles and took bronze; that year he helped Hong Kong to third place in the world team championships. Playing a traditional single-sided penhold loop and later adding the reverse penhold backhand, he reached a career-high world ranking of tenth in June 2008. He faded from the main squad after 2011 and moved into coaching, succeeding the retiring Li Huifen as head coach of the Hong Kong women's team in 2013. At the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 he guided Su Hui-yin, Lee Ho-ching and Doo Hoi-kem to a bronze medal in the women's team event, becoming the first Hong Kong person to win Olympic medals both as an athlete and as a coach; after the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games he succeeded Chan Kong-wah as head coach of the Hong Kong team. He holds the Medal of Honour (2005), was named Hong Kong Outstanding Athlete in 2004 and one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of Hong Kong in 2010.
The men's doubles silver that Li Ching won with Ko Lai-chak was Hong Kong's first Olympic medal after the 1997 handover, raising the Hong Kong flag on a men's Olympic podium for the first time; he later moved into coaching and guided Hong Kong to another Olympic bronze in Tokyo, becoming the first Hong Kong person to take Olympic medals both as an athlete and as a coach.
Achievements
- 1990 · Was selected for the Chinese national table tennis team
- 2004 · Won the men's doubles silver with Ko Lai-chak at the Athens Olympics, Hong Kong's first post-handover Olympic medal
- 2006 · Won the men's doubles gold with Ko Lai-chak and a men's singles bronze at the Doha Asian Games
- 2021 · As coach led the Hong Kong women's team to a bronze medal in the team event at the Tokyo Olympics