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Well-Known Member
Greetings all.
I've traveled quite a bit and witness different countries TT structure, and have TT friends around the world.
I reside in South Africa, and we are very far behind on TT from an overall prespective. I've started Tony's Table Tennis that focus on equipment sales, coaching academy and agency work, aiming to help uplift the overall table tennis platform in the future.
Besides the fun part of Taiwan, I spend some time with some reputable table tennis people - some players, some coaches, some adminitrators.
In Taiwan, the level of TT is climbing - just look at the (new) players in the grand finals - mens and womens double.
I have learnt a lot from this trip, and will hope that my new learnings can assist SA Table Tennis, to list some:
- School table tennis (top sport schools), Train Mon/Wed/Thurs 2pm to 9pm and Tues/Thurs/Sat 2pm to 7pm (they live at the school) - sponsored by corporates. These kids are easily 2500 USATT level, the 2600 to 2700 level makes the junior national team.
- corporates sponsor table tennis, not much from Gov - accept the basic community sport centres (which all sports has). Mostly financial sector companies sponsor TT - like Banks and Insurance companies
- Ex champions all started TT schools/training centres, most recent in Chuang Chih Yuan - Chih Yuan Ping Pong stadium
- Lots of clubs (in basements of builders or places with low ceiling), and great social media/internet platform to find "places to play"
- Most of school (normal schools - not sports school) have table tennis, from primary school upwards. Mostly have more than 10 tables.
- Groups of social players - over 3000 members, that conduct different "friendly" tourneys around the country - really fun - like a 10 man relay match, and first person to loose 3 points must be subbed, first team to run out of players loose (winner stays on etc). I visited one today, and these guys are like USATT 2000 up, one of them is around 2400 to 2500.
- Really clever IT people, taking USATT system and making it much better, so good that ITTF invited these guys to do a presentation at WTTC 2013 Paris.
Table Tennis isn't a big sport, but with the "limited" that is done and mostly "privately" done, no wonder many top Chinese Taipei players are appearing in the world rankings.
I think its interesting to share the "winning" formulas, and see if these exchange of information can help our local table tennis. Hence the reason of my sharing.
Now, Melbourne trip is coming up, any Melbourne forum members here?
I've traveled quite a bit and witness different countries TT structure, and have TT friends around the world.
I reside in South Africa, and we are very far behind on TT from an overall prespective. I've started Tony's Table Tennis that focus on equipment sales, coaching academy and agency work, aiming to help uplift the overall table tennis platform in the future.
Besides the fun part of Taiwan, I spend some time with some reputable table tennis people - some players, some coaches, some adminitrators.
In Taiwan, the level of TT is climbing - just look at the (new) players in the grand finals - mens and womens double.
I have learnt a lot from this trip, and will hope that my new learnings can assist SA Table Tennis, to list some:
- School table tennis (top sport schools), Train Mon/Wed/Thurs 2pm to 9pm and Tues/Thurs/Sat 2pm to 7pm (they live at the school) - sponsored by corporates. These kids are easily 2500 USATT level, the 2600 to 2700 level makes the junior national team.
- corporates sponsor table tennis, not much from Gov - accept the basic community sport centres (which all sports has). Mostly financial sector companies sponsor TT - like Banks and Insurance companies
- Ex champions all started TT schools/training centres, most recent in Chuang Chih Yuan - Chih Yuan Ping Pong stadium
- Lots of clubs (in basements of builders or places with low ceiling), and great social media/internet platform to find "places to play"
- Most of school (normal schools - not sports school) have table tennis, from primary school upwards. Mostly have more than 10 tables.
- Groups of social players - over 3000 members, that conduct different "friendly" tourneys around the country - really fun - like a 10 man relay match, and first person to loose 3 points must be subbed, first team to run out of players loose (winner stays on etc). I visited one today, and these guys are like USATT 2000 up, one of them is around 2400 to 2500.
- Really clever IT people, taking USATT system and making it much better, so good that ITTF invited these guys to do a presentation at WTTC 2013 Paris.
Table Tennis isn't a big sport, but with the "limited" that is done and mostly "privately" done, no wonder many top Chinese Taipei players are appearing in the world rankings.
I think its interesting to share the "winning" formulas, and see if these exchange of information can help our local table tennis. Hence the reason of my sharing.
Now, Melbourne trip is coming up, any Melbourne forum members here?