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Hi guys,
On Friday I posted a question on my Facebook page asking...
"Do you know of any international table tennis players that were late developers? For example, didn't start playing until their teens or played several sports and didn't specialize until their late teens. I'd be interested to interview them. Do you think it is essential to specialize early in order to reach the top in our sport?"
It gained a fair amount of interest and Dan suggested I start a thread on here to create some further debate. Here are a few questions I'd like to tackle...
1. Are there any top players that didn't start playing until their teens?
2. Do you need to start playing table tennis at a very young age to ever have a chance of reaching the top?
3. Is it possible to play many sports and only specialise and focus on TT later in life (mid-to-late teens)?
4. Is there some sort of "window of opportunity" at a certain age that helps the learning of a sport like table tennis?
5. Does playing table tennis at a young age at such a high intensity lead to burnout or injuries later on?
I find all of this type of thing really interesting and I'm keen to hear your thoughts too. If there is enough interest I'll try and track down some players and coaches to interview about it all.
On Friday I posted a question on my Facebook page asking...
"Do you know of any international table tennis players that were late developers? For example, didn't start playing until their teens or played several sports and didn't specialize until their late teens. I'd be interested to interview them. Do you think it is essential to specialize early in order to reach the top in our sport?"
It gained a fair amount of interest and Dan suggested I start a thread on here to create some further debate. Here are a few questions I'd like to tackle...
1. Are there any top players that didn't start playing until their teens?
2. Do you need to start playing table tennis at a very young age to ever have a chance of reaching the top?
3. Is it possible to play many sports and only specialise and focus on TT later in life (mid-to-late teens)?
4. Is there some sort of "window of opportunity" at a certain age that helps the learning of a sport like table tennis?
5. Does playing table tennis at a young age at such a high intensity lead to burnout or injuries later on?
I find all of this type of thing really interesting and I'm keen to hear your thoughts too. If there is enough interest I'll try and track down some players and coaches to interview about it all.