Table tennis world champion Kong Linghui yesterday formally announced his retirement and his intent to compete for a China Table Tennis Team coach position, sina.com reported Thursday.

Kong began his competitive career at age six, and in 1986 made the Heilongjiang Provincial team, going on to make the national team in 1991.

31-year-old Kong is one of only three athletes to perform a gold-medal sweep at all three major table tennis tournaments, the World Championships, the Table Tennis World Cup and the Olympic Games. The other two are his former teammate Liu Guoliang, now head coach of China's men table tennis team and Swedish veteran, Waldner Jan-Ove.

At the beginning of the year, Kong was assigned some coaching duty in order to lighten the working stress of the men's team. However, until now, Kong has still mainly been focusing on his own training and match-play.

(China Daily October 13, 2006)