How table tennis changed the world, 50 years on
Shanghai (AFP) - It was 50 years ago but Zhang Xielin still remembers vividly how a shaggy-haired American table tennis player stepped onto the Chinese team's bus, a chance encounter which would shape history. It was the world championships in Nagoya, Japan, and Glenn Cowan mistakenly hopped in with Zhang and his teammates -- an awkward moment because the United States and China were then deeply at odds. "We were on the bus and were talking and laughing," Zhang, now 80, told AFP. "But when we realised that an American had come onto the bus, we fell silent." The Chinese triple world champion Zh...