What makes China so good?

jawien said:

Sure, his name didn't start with Jan ... something ..?
; )

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Hey, is that Jan Ove Waldner? Gotta go!

There is a cool video about Romanian table tennis if you didn't see it yet.

Romanian girls
definitely look like cinderela story.

From what I saw in the video

1) centralised location (national centre) - all players must leave home city and move to that city
2) 1 player 1 coach (trainer)
3) study and train in same location (I assume they stay nearby as 1 UNIT)

I didn't celebrate too much of Taiwan before, but one of my earlier trips, I visited Cathay Life (insurance) corporate training HQ, which housed the table tennis team.
There is 3 age groups, of 8 players each. so that is 24 players in total
your middle school 3 years (13~15)
high school 3 years (16~18)
Then university (19+)

The training area isn't the best - because it is in an office block, therefore no high ceiling, but they do have a good 20+ tables. Unlimited resources in terms of balls, rubbers, flooring, tables, training partners, international tours
The chairman of Cathay Life is a fan, thus he took it upon himself to build one of the top female training centre (environment) in the world.

The players live in that building. Eat in that building, and in the morning, the school goers get bussed to a nearby school/univeristy, have a unique program that school for them only finished at 12:00. (they represent those school's table tennis team in school/university competition, and world school/university games)
They get back to base, have lunch and training starts at 13:30. Two sessions in the afternoon, 1 in the evening (alternate night), full day on saturday.
The players cellphone are "banned", and they only allowed access for 10 mins in the evening and after training during weekends.

Chen Szu Yu is from that team - all you need to see is spot the "green tree" on the Chinese TPE shirt, then you will know they are a Cathay Life player.
The other on Chuan Chiu Yuan's shirt is Taiwan Co-Op bank, and they sponsor girls and boys, where Cathay is only girls.
I know both head coaches, but have a better personal relationship with co-op bank management and coaching staff (ie the head coach of co-op bank came to my wedding).

Back to Cathy, other than providing academic scholarship, free accommodation and meals, international travel (x amount of junior world circuits), the players also get salaries.
One require to be the best cadet girls players to get scouted into the system.

One of the best thing I saw is that they work as 1 unit, so the older players are the junior players mentors
The university players are the co coach of the middle school players.
After the uni group finish - they stay on as player coach, or if they retire, they just become coach (or leave the team)

I hope your top Chairmans of world corporate can put aside few million dollars a year to help do this (hint, Ariel's Uncle Bill, Uncle Warren)

I also think poverty is a reason china is good at tabletennis. The sport give them a big chance in life. I have heard the are now recruiting children more from the countryside since people have become richer in the cities.

Tony's Table Tennis said:

can you explain how the more successful youth in the bigger clubs develop from grassroot to international level
in terms of coaching/training, hours, funding (gov/corporate/self) etc

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Until a player reaches B-level, everything is up to the parents basically. But after reaching B level, they can already get paid for the matches they play, and most likely get sponsored by a brand as well. Joola and Tibhar are quite active in this manner. They’re also free to train in their club without any fees, since the government pays the club some money to invest in such players. If a young player reaches top B level like B0 or B2, they’ll be sent to international competitions by the federation. After that, they have the opportunity to get an A ranking based on their results. If successful, the amount of money the receive per match is gonna be way more.

There’s a large circuit of tournaments to play in for the youth, and there are cheap training opportunities available, something like 20€ per hour. But as far as I know, a young player is on their own financially until they reach a fairly high level of play.


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Ilia Minkin said:

There is a cool video about Romanian table tennis if you didn't see it yet.

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I've been watching it for a few times now, and there's something in it so beautiful it makes me cry, with which the fact that it's about girls has nothing to do whatsoever. It's the vigour of it, I guess. Just so full of life. Not just me being an old fool.

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20181225-00010000-worldtt-spo&p=1
An article about copy players and He Zhuojia

Takkyu_wa_inochi said:

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20181225-00010000-worldtt-spo&p=1
An article about copy players and He Zhuojia

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Does Japan have practice partners that copy to help prepare the players?

Japan as what I have saw are very much 1 unit (strong unit, 1 player with 3 to 10 support team each), and most of the girls have Chinese practice partners
the normal SP/LP I gather one will practice that before a match, but is there more in depth practicing against opponents styles and technique?

I don’t know but there are a lot of Chinese coaches in Japan and a few female Chinese players even in T League

Takkyu_wa_inochi said:

I don’t know but there are a lot of Chinese coaches in Japan and a few female Chinese players even in T League

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Yeah, I personally know maybe off hand over 10 coaches that left China to go to Japan, who are either there or still there.
Its crazy.
But I guess since its so close by (easy to go home for a weekend) and the future/money is better, why not...

USA has one of the best cadet programs in the world - by Larry Hodge (this showed up in my FB memory today):

"I've said this before, and I'll say it again: the current level of play at the cadet level (under 15) is the best in our history, and it's not even close. The depth is unbelievable. The rise of full-time training centers with junior programs is the reason for this - we've gone from about ten to 65 in seven years. Kanak Jha, 13, who made the semifinals of Men's Singles, leads the pack on the boys' side, while several battle for that title on the girls' side (including 11-year-old Crystal Wang from my club, who won Under 21 Women), but there's a lot of them in the pack. Only time will tell who will rise to the top."


And checking the up to date "full time centres" in USA on Larry's website:
http://www.tabletenniscoaching.com/full-time_table-tennis_clubs_usa

"To me, a full-time center (roughly speaking) has a website, at least five or more tables, is open at least six days a week, has professional coaches (preferably at least one full-time), a junior program, and a league. If it's missing one of these but has the others, it might make the cut. For example, if a club is only open five days a week, but has fifty tables and ten professional coaches, leagues, junior programs, etc., that's a full-time professional club in my mind."
-Larry Hodges
Current Count: 94 in 24 states and DC
Last update: Nov. 5, 2018


There is also many Chinese coaches, Japanese, Europeans that has made USA they new home and have contributed to the success of junior Olympic medals for USA
Both male and female has world top 100 players, whom are still very young

In USA side, they can develop a player, but seems like they are struggling to go beyond that domestically, due to lack of competition and prize money. So most of them go to Europe

I understand that Germany has a lot of clubs and lot of them are full time - but seems like there is not really a lot of input (in this thread) in terms of countries and what is working for them and what is not.

One of the clubs I know in France (I sent a player there before)
gets x funding from the government a month.
the rest are membership funding and some is from corporate.

They are predominately juniors and they go to "training camps" in China once a year - self funded.
I guess its just more wealthy parents

Concerning the 2nd tier: The evidence is Japan will overwhelm the rest of the world. Japan will be as dominant as the 2nd tier juggernaut as China is the 1st tier juggernaut.

Tony's Table Tennis said:

Does Japan have practice partners that copy to help prepare the players?

Japan as what I have saw are very much 1 unit (strong unit, 1 player with 3 to 10 support team each), and most of the girls have Chinese practice partners
the normal SP/LP I gather one will practice that before a match, but is there more in depth practicing against opponents styles and technique?

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Not really. They do have training partners who use Chinese rubber and maybe choppers when they feel the need. Logic is, you can't really make a copy player when he/she has fundamentlly better techniques.

It makes me wonder how much time (ratio wise) CNT spend practicing against copy players.

Its simple.Folk from USA and the western world in general want to make money from sport.