Farewell to Table Tennis Legend Cheng Jiayan
Farewell to Table Tennis Legend Cheng Jiayan 
On July 29, 2026, the table tennis community lost a true giant as Cheng Jiayan, a revered figure in refereeing, passed away at the age of 92. 
Cheng Jiayan was born in February 1934. At the age of 16, he joined the Air Force, responding to the national call of ‘Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, Protect Our Homes and Defend the Country’ while he was studying in Shanghai. During his 22-year military career, he spent half the time in flying units and the other half in the Air Force Engineering Department, primarily maintaining special equipment like aircraft instruments and autopilots.
Cheng Jiayan was awarded three third-class merits in the military, received a third-class technical innovation award from the Ministry of Defense, and joined the Communist Party of China during his service. In 1971, when the Afro-Asian Table Tennis Friendship Invitational Tournament was held in Beijing, Cheng was among those from the military, including cultural and sports talents, who were temporarily assigned to the National Sports Commission to help organize the event. The tournament was a great success, and in April 1972, Cheng officially became a member of the National Sports Commission.
During his tenure at the National Sports Commission, Cheng held various positions, including Deputy Director and Director of the Table Tennis Department, Deputy Director of the Table Tennis Sports Management Center, Deputy Secretary-General and Secretary-General of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, member of the Chinese Olympic Committee, and member of the Sports Training Branch of the China Sports Science Society. 
In 1989, Cheng presided over the draw at the 40th World Table Tennis Championships in Dortmund, Germany. Between 1973 and 1992, he was approved as an international referee and international referee chairman by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). He served as a member of the ITTF Rules Committee and Secretary of the Technical Committee for eight terms over 16 years and was the Secretary of the Technical Committee of the Asian Table Tennis Union for 12 years. In 1999, he received the ITTF Merit Award, and in 2002, he was honored with the Chinese Table Tennis Outstanding Contribution Award. 
In 2002, Cheng Jiayan was awarded the Chinese Table Tennis Outstanding Contribution Award. Throughout his career as a table tennis referee, he presided over all national and international competitions held in China. He explored and established a complete set of theories and operational techniques for table tennis competition, rules, and refereeing. He proposed and implemented two significant reforms: changing the administrative approval system for national referees to a strict examination system held every two years, and transforming the traditional master-apprentice training mechanism for referees into a formal training class system. These reforms helped create a world-leading, large-scale table tennis referee team. 
In 1988, when table tennis first entered the Olympics, Cheng Jiayan (front row, second from right) was appointed as an arbitrator by the ITTF. Cheng once said, ‘I joined the Air Force to go to the front lines, and now table tennis has given me another chance to go to the front lines. I must dedicate myself to the cause of table tennis in our country for life. This should be what President Xi calls the original aspiration; my original aspiration has not changed for 50 years.’
A man who adhered to his original aspiration and dedicated his life to the cause of table tennis, Mr. Cheng, may you rest in peace! 
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