Category profile
- Dominance
- 80
- Peak
- 88
- Longevity
- 96
- Honours
- 84
- Statistics
- 84
Career timeline · Titles per season
| Season | Titles per season | Share of career |
|---|---|---|
| 1983 | 2 | |
| 1984 | 3 | |
| 1985 | 5 | |
| 1986 | 8 | |
| 1987 | 10 | |
| 1988 | 12 | |
| 1989 | 10 | |
| 1990 | 8 | |
| 1991 | 6 | |
| 1992 | 8 | |
| 1993 | 10 | |
| 1994 | 12 | |
| 1995 | 14 | |
| 1996 | 16 | |
| 1997 | 18 | |
| 1998 | 20 |
Data sources
- ITTF
- Olympedia
Figures come from public records and are normalised per sport. See the methodology for category weights. Method
Why Ni Xialian ranks #4 in Table Tennis
Ni Xialian ranks 4th among Table Tennis athletes on GOAT Rank and 612th of 1063 across every sport in the index. The published GOAT Score of 86.2 is the weighted result of five verified category scores: Dominance 80, Peak 88, Longevity 96, Honours 84, Statistics 84. Those categories are normalised against the full Table Tennis reference universe of 295 records, not a shortlist, so the position reflects the whole sport rather than a handful of famous names.
The record covers 1983–present with 16 documented competitive seasons. The strongest single season in that series is 1998, which sets the Peak component at 88. Longevity is the defining strength of the profile at 96 out of 100, and it carries 20% of the final score. The underlying career record includes world championship golds 2, european titles 3, olympic games contested 6, european championship medals 8.
Immediately ahead sits Ding Ning on 89.7, a gap of 3.5 points. Directly behind is Deng Yaping on 91.4. The position moves whenever the verified record moves: new titles, new seasons or a corrected source all feed straight back into the same formula, and every change is dated on this profile.
Ni Xialian GOAT Score explained
- Dominance80/100 · weight 25%
- Measures how far Ni stood above the field while competing. Scored 80/100 against the full Table Tennis cohort.
- Peak88/100 · weight 20%
- Rates the best sustained stretch of the career, centred on 1998. Scored 88/100.
- Longevity96/100 · weight 20%
- Rewards staying at that level over time: 43 years of competition and 16 recorded seasons. Scored 96/100.
- Honours84/100 · weight 20%
- Counts documented titles, majors and awards in the verified record. Scored 84/100.
- Statistics84/100 · weight 15%
- Normalises the raw career numbers against everyone in the sport reporting the same metric. Scored 84/100.
Top Ni comparisons
Ni Xialian — frequently asked
- Is Ni Xialian the GOAT?
- Not on the current data. Ni Xialian ranks 4th in Table Tennis with a GOAT Score of 86.2, behind Ma Long on 97.3.
- What is Ni Xialian's GOAT Score?
- 86.2 out of 100. It is the weighted sum of Dominance 80 (25%), Peak 88 (20%), Longevity 96 (20%), Honours 84 (20%), Statistics 84 (15%), computed from the verified career record.
- Where does Ni Xialian rank all time?
- 612th of 1063 eligible athletes in the cross-sport index, and 4th within Table Tennis.
- Ni Xialian vs Ding Ning: who ranks higher?
- Ding Ning, on 89.7 against Ni Xialian's 86.2 — a margin of 3.5 points.