News Rio 2016’s Olympic table tennis tournament has the first two names on its official line-up – Dimitrij Ovtcharov from Germany for the men and Li Jiao from the Netherlands for the women The players secured their slots at the Olympic Games after claiming their respective European table tennis singles titles at the Baku 2016 European Games in Azerbaijan today (19 June), as said by the ITTF's qualification system Going into the women’s final, the Netherlands’ place at the Olympic Games was already guaranteed No matter who won out in the match between compatriots and friends, Li Jie and Li Jiao, the Netherlands could count on adding a gold and a silver medal to their tally and qualifying one player for the Games Elena Timina, coach to both of the women, watched as protege Li Jiao claimed the gold by 4 sets to 0 Winner, Li Jiao revealed that the two players have known each other for almost 16 years "We're very close friends," she said, "But I knew I had to think about the match if I wanted to win Now that it's over, we can be friends again "Commenting on her place at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, she said: "It means a lot less anxiety and energy spent, knowing that I've qualified ”  European champion Dimitrij Ovtcharov will be heading to Rio with his sights on a fourth Olympic medal (Photo: David Ramos/Getty Images) In the men’s event, Olympic veteran, Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov defeated Belarus’ Vladmimir Sasonov by 4 sets to 3 to claim the European title and his Olympic ticket Next year’s Games will be the German’s third consecutive opportunity to try for an elusive gold at the podium, having won a team silver in Beijing in 2008 and two bronzes (singles and team) in London in 2012 Of the total 128 Olympic table tennis singles vacancies available, a further 39 men’s and 39 women’s slots are still to be decided in series of qualifying events taking place between now and April 2016 The next qualifier on the horizon is the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games from 10-26 July One host-country slot per gender is reserved for Brazil, and one man and one woman will take part by invitation The remaining slots will be allocated to the best-placed players on the International Table Tennis Federation’s (ITTF) Olympic Singles Ranking, with each country entitled to a maximum of two players per gender The teams that will compete in the Olympic table tennis competitions will only be decided once the athletes qualified via the singles continental qualification events and the Olympic Singles Ranking have been identified Rio2016 com is not an absolute authority on qualification for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is an ongoing process Final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games) The qualification systems are defined by each sport’s respective International Federation and the International Olympic Committee or International Paralympic Committee, and are subject to change When an athlete or team wins a quota place for their nation, the final decision on whether this ‘slot’ is used and which athletes are sent is taken by the respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee (NOC or NPC) Even when athletes win a ‘nominal’ place for themselves, NOCs/NPCs may have to decide who to send if the number of qualified athletes from one country exceeds the quota