France to feature in women's table tennis team event at Tokyo Olympics

BEIJING - Team France has accepted the team quota relocation from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to play in the women's team event at the Tokyo Olympic Games, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) announced on Tuesday.

The French National Olympic Committee (NOC) had confirmed Yuan Jia Nan and Prithika Pavade as the two players previously qualified, and Stephanie Loeuillette was added as the third player to the team.

"The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board (EB) decided that the International Federations (IFs) concerned may immediately reallocate any sporting quota places won by athletes from DPRK for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 to other NOCs in accordance with the IFs' published qualification systems," read an ITTF statement.

"This decision has been taken now in order to respect the interest of athletes who are next in line and cannot wait any longer."

Yuan and Pavade will be featured in the women's singles for team France while Loeuillette will join them in the team event.

The French men's trio of Simon Gauzy, Emmanuel Lebesson and Alexandre Cassin had been confirmed earlier for the team event. Gauzy and Lebesson were confirmed for the men's singles, while Lebesson and Yuan will partner each other in the mixed doubles, an added event at this year's Olympics.

According to Tokyo Olympics table tennis qualification system, 48 places per gender are allocated for the men's and women's team events. A maximum of 70 places is available for each of the men's and women's singles events. There is a total of 86 players per gender across all three events. 16 pairs are available for the mixed doubles event.

The table tennis competition for the Tokyo Olympic Games will be held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium from July 24 to August 6.