(by Steve Hopkins)

Butterfly-sponsored Kanak Jha is heading to Tokyo as the highest ranked of all the US table tennis players.  At the last Olympics, he was the youngest of all of the US participants.  This year, he enters as a seasoned international player who has been focused almost exclusively on table tennis, who has competed in major tournaments each year, and who has been a part of a highly ranked team in the German league.  Jha enters the Olympics seeded 21st in Men’s Singles.

Kanak Jha USA Table Tennis Olympic Athletes Bio at teamusa.org.  USATT has put together a great bio of Kanak with key information from his height and weight to his club teams and coaches.  The news section includes 20 pages of articles going back to 2012.

Get to know Kanak Jha: 5 facts about Team USA’s table tennis star ahead of second Olympics – USA Today article by Charles McDonald giving an overview of Kanak Jha.  What are the five facts?  (1) First US Olympian born in 2000s, (2) First American man to medal in table tennis at any Olympic Games (Summer Youth Olympics 2018), (3) Started playing at 5 years old, (4) Jha trained in Sweden, and (5) He is the highest-ranked player for Team USA.  Check out the full detailed information, collection of neat facts, as well as the videos and photos in the full article.

Kanak Jha Highlights on YouTube.  Check out all of the matches available of Kanak on YouTube.

Table Tennis Junkie Interview.  The Table Tennis Talk interview with Ryan Lewis and Joey Cochran interview Kanak during the Pandemic to discuss a variety of topics.

PongNow Interview.  Steve Hopkins interviews Kanak Jha in the Butterfly-sponsored PongNow series.

PongPositive Interview Series.  Mark Thompson (USATT) talks table tennis with Kanak in April of 2020.