Drinkhall and Pitchford, both integral parts of the England side which claimed a shock bronze medal at the 2016 World Team Championships in Kuala Lumpur in March, have become the first players to be selected for the Olympics by right since Matthew Syed, now a journalist for The Times, at Sydney 2000.

The 26-year-old, the reigning Commonwealth Games mixed doubles champion along with wife Joanna, admits he is an outsider for a podium place at Rio 2016 but believes he can beat anyone on his day.

He is targeting his very own Leicester City moment by overcoming the Chinese players after the English club, who escaped relegation from the Premier League last season, completed a remarkable turnaround to win the title this year.

China have won four of the past five men's singles table tennis Olympic golds, with South Korean Ryu Seung-Min's victory at Athens 2004 the only blotch on their record.

“In the Olympic Games there is only two of them in the singles so that’s broke it down for the rest of the world,” Drinkhall, a semi-finalist in the men’s singles tournament at the inaugural European Games in Baku last June, told insidethegames here.

“They are the best players, there’s no doubt about that, and it’s by quite a way at the minute.

“But Leicester City won the Premier League and things happen.

“We won a team bronze at the World Championships and I won the Spanish Open as the number 24 seed - strange things happen.

“I believe in myself and at the end of the day they’re human beings and I am pretty sure I can beat them.”