China reaffirmed their position as the dominant force in Olympic table tennis in Athens but their grip is suddenly looking a little less firm than it used to be.
The Chinese won three of the four titles in Athens but lost the men's singles for the first time since 1992 and the sport's world governing body is hatching a plan to stop them winning everything at the next Olympics.
The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) announced it wants to drop the doubles and replace them with a team event at Beijing in 2008, the latest in a series of moves designed to make the sport more appealing and allow more countries to share in the medals.
China won every gold and most of the silvers at the past two Olympics but the ITTF introduced a rule preventing players from the same country meeting in the final.
The result was that five countries won medals in table tennis at Athens, although China still took the lion's share with three golds, a silver and two bronzes.
Zhang Yining won two golds, including her country's 100th in all sports since joining Olympic competition in 1984.
Zhang overwhelmed North Korean Kim Hyang-mi 4-0 to win the women's singles after teaming up with Wang Nan to claim the doubles, beating Korean pair Lee Eun-sil and Seok Eun-mi in straight sets.
{{/usCountry}}Zhang overwhelmed North Korean Kim Hyang-mi 4-0 to win the women's singles after teaming up with Wang Nan to claim the doubles, beating Korean pair Lee Eun-sil and Seok Eun-mi in straight sets.
{{/usCountry}}Chen Qi and his partner Ma Lin won the men's doubles with a 4-2 win over Ko Lai-chak and Li Ching but hopes of another cleansweep ended with the men's singles.
An upset was already brewing when Wang Hao beat world number one Wang Liqin in the semi-finals but the young Chinese was unable to repeat his performance in the final, losing 4-2 to Korea's Ryu Seung-min.
Ryu won a thrilling final to become the first Korean to win the title since Yoo Nam-Kyu at Seoul in 1988, when the sport was included at the Olympics for the first time.
Wang admitted he had felt the pressure of trying to maintain China's stranglehold on Olympic ping pong but said the result didn't suggest there was a changing of the guard.
"We won all the golds in 1996, we won all the golds in 2000 and we won three golds here so we are still the strongest and most invincible team," Wang said.