Special report: 2008 Olympic Games     

    By Sportswriter Wu Zhi

    BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- She is so popular in the pingpong kingdom that she must get used to playing in front of boisterous crowds and continuous camera flashes at the Beijing Olympics.

    With huge numbers of fans in both Japan and China, doll-faced Ai Fukuhara, a sports ambassador of goodwill between the two nations, will lead the Japanese delegation as its flag bearer in the opening ceremony on Friday.

Japanese table tennis player Ai Fukuhara receives the team flag during a ceremony to officially unveil the Japanese Olympic Delegation for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Tokyo, capital of Japan, on July 28, 2008. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    "The national flag I' m holding in my hand is heavy, but the responsibility on my shoulders is heavier," the pint-sized girl told reporters at a send-off for Japanese Olympians in Tokyo last week.

    The 19-year-old, often referred to as "Ai-chan" in Japan or the "porcelain doll" in China, is expected to end Japan's Olympic medal drought in table tennis since the sport was introduced at the 1988 Seoul Games.

    Such hopes get a big boost as a round-robin team competition will replace the double event this summer.

    Fukuhara, ranked 12th, has won nothing in world-level singles and doubles competitions, but a singles bronze in the 2005 World Cup. However, she helped Japan finish third three times at the biennial world team championships between 2004-2008.

Japanese table tennis player Ai Fukuhara (C) poses for a group picture with little table tennis fans in Guagnzhou, Capital of south China's Guangdong Province, March. 15, 2006.  (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    She has claimed more than once that she likes team competitions and will repay those who favor her with an excellent performance at her second Olympic Games.

    The girl, who began playing table tennis at three and became the youngest ever member of the national team at 11, gained fame for her sweet looks and tendency to turn on the waterworks after defeat.

    But she said she would show all her talent at the Beijing Olympics and "come back to Japan smiling."

    "A lot of friends and coaches will come to watch me play in Beijing. I must brave it out so that I will have no regrets after the matches," she said.

    Frequently trained in China and fluent in Chinese with a northeastern accent, Fukuhara believes that the Beijing Olympics are neither a home game nor a game away from home.

    She went to north China's Tianjin for training every year before the age of 10. "At that time, I was never regarded as a foreigner," she once recalled.

    After finishing in the last 16 in the Athens singles tournament, she joined a club in the northeastern Liaoning province in 2005, hoping that playing in the Chinese super league would narrow her gap with the players at the top of world rankings.

    In this birthplace of some best paddlers, Fukuhara became the teammate of two top five players Guo Yue and Wang Nan, whom she would later face in Athens and Beijing.

    The Japanese girl once admitted that the 30-year-old Wang, the winner of 23 world titles, was her "idol and big sister" that she could never beat.

    The trio of Wang, world champion Guo and world number one Zhang Yining will be dominant on home soil, but when Fukuhara faces a non-Chinese this summer, fans in the ping pong kingdom will take her side, cheering for her with extra fervor.