He Zhili

He Zhili (Chire Koyama)
He Zhili (Chire Koyama)
Native name	何智丽
Nationality	China, then Japan
Born	30 September 1964 (age 59); Shanghai, China
Medal record
Women's table tennis
Representing Japan
Asian Games
Asian Championships
Representing China
World Championships
Asian Games
Asian Championships

He Zhili (simplified Chinese: 何智丽; traditional Chinese: 何智麗; pinyin: Hé Zhìlì; born 30 September 1964 in Shanghai),^[1] also known by her married name Chire Koyama (小山ちれ, Koyama Chire), is a former table tennis world champion from China^[2] who later naturalized as a Japanese citizen and represented Japan under her married name.

Career

Asian Games

Representing China as He Zhili, she was the runner-up in both singles and doubles at the Seoul Games in 1986. Koyama won the 1994 Asian Games singles title in Hiroshima, Japan playing for her adopted country.^[2]

Asian Championships

She won gold in singles and silver in mixed doubles at the 7th Asian Championships held in 1983 in Islamabad, Pakistan.^[2]

World Championships

Representing China, she won the singles and team gold^[3]^[4] during the 1987 World Championships in New Delhi, India.^[2] However, she left the national team soon after as a result of her decision to not throw away matches to her teammates.^[5] The 1987 world championship semi-finals featured 3 Chinese women and the Korean Yang Young-Ja. In the first semi-final, China's Dai Lily led 18–12 in the final set but she blew the lead and lost 21–18 to Yang Young-Ja. It is alleged that the Chinese coaches (Zhang, Xielin) thought that Guan Jianhua had a better chance of beating Yang Young-Ja in the final, and ordered He Zhili to lose the semi-final. She refused to obey the order and won the match. The Chinese coaches had no option but to support her in the final to increase the country's tally of medals. Though He Zhili beat Yang Young-Ja, she left the team because of the incident and migrated to Japan.

Olympic Games

Koyama represented Japan at the 1996 Atlanta Games and 2000 Sydney Games.^[2] She reached the quarter final stage (singles) in both games.^[1]

Marriage

He Zhili married and later divorced, Hideyuki Koyama, a Japanese national and settled in Japan.^[5] She adopted her husband's surname (her given name “Chire” is the Japanese pronunciation of the same Chinese characters of “Zhili”).^[5]