Major honours
South Korea has won more Olympic table tennis golds than any country besides China. At the 1973 World Championships in Sarajevo, Lee Ailesa, Chung Hyun-sook and Park Mi-ra lifted the Corbillon Cup, giving Korea its first world team title in any ball sport, and at the Seoul 1988 Olympics Yoo Nam-kyu won the men's singles while Yang Young-ja and Hyun Jung-hwa won women's doubles. In 1991 in Chiba, playing as part of the unified Korea team, Ri Bun-hui and Yu Sun-bok helped beat China 3-2, and in 1993 in Gothenburg Hyun Jung-hwa became world women's singles champion. The gold Ryu Seung-min won over Wang Hao in Athens in 2004 remains, through 2024, the last time a non-Chinese player won Olympic men's singles; two of the three times a country other than China has taken that title, it was Korea. The penhold attack running from Yoo Nam-kyu through Kim Taek-soo to Ryu Seung-min, and the defensive style of Joo Se-hyuk, became emblematic of Korean table tennis, and at Paris 2024 Shin Yu-bin and Lim Jong-hoon added a mixed doubles bronze, with the women's team also taking bronze.
Record comparison
Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.
Club legends
Rivalry
Korea has produced more upsets against China in Olympic finals and World Championship semifinals than almost any other country, and against Japan it has contested Asian Championship and Olympic team rankings for over half a century.