Xu Yinsheng

Xu Yinsheng is a Chinese table tennis player, born on 12 May 1938, who later became one of the sport's senior administrators. Between 1959 and 1965 he won seven medals in singles, doubles and team events at the World Table Tennis Championships, four of them gold: three in the team event and one in the men's doubles with Zhuang Zedong at the 1965 championships. He was coach of the Chinese national team at the 1971 World Championships in Nagoya. From 1995 until 1999 he served as president of the International Table Tennis Federation, taking over after the sudden death of Sven-Olof Hammarlund and handing on to Adham Sharara of Canada, and he was inducted into the ITTF Hall of Fame in 2010. On the eve of the Cultural Revolution his advice on playing table tennis was also promoted by the People's Daily as inspiration for retail workers.