Yui Hamamoto moving to Austria

[driversbeat]

Apparently this is a thing now? Not sure how true these allegations are, seeing how there's only a clip of her playing Seo Hyowon plus some text in Japanese, but it sounds probable given the depth of talent within the Japanese national team now. We could be seeing an exodus of second-string Japanese players representing other countries just as it has always been in China. I don't think the likes of Hamamoto have a high chance of breaking into the Japanese main team (although not impossible. Thoughts?

 

[zeio]

Not allegations at all. She will enter the Slovenian Open representing Austria.

From the limited reports so far, no one on the JNT knew about this.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

How can she represent Austria ??? Has she any Austrian ascent ? Has she been living in Austria at all ???

 

[zeio]

From the players' perspective, it's totally normal for them to chase after their dreams. It happens all the time in other sports. For table tennis, back then it was very common for the Jews to represent multiple countries over their careers...

Dora Beregi represented Hungary, then England, then Australia.

 

[zeio]

Expect the unexpected - Men's 100m at Asian Games 2018

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Chinese man under 10s !

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Why not?

 

[FruitLoop]

What is her Austrian connection? Surely she can't represent Austria internationally you must be a citizen right?

 

[Janard]

I'm more surprised by her choice of country instead of the lack of any visible/known connections. Is Austria poised to become a strong team? I imagine she would have much better luck representing Hong Kong, Taiwan or even Singapore.

 

[NextLevel]

I'm more surprised by her choice of country instead of the lack of any visible/known connections. Is Austria poised to become a strong team? I imagine she would have much better luck representing Hong Kong, Taiwan or even Singapore.

They need someone to replace Liu Jia and they do have Polcanova.

 

[zeio]

I don't understand what this Youtube video is doing on this topic though

In case it's not obvious, in line 8 is Tosin Ogunode, who shares the same backstory as his brother Femi Ogunode. The two Africans have competed at the Asian Games.

How did you get into representing Qatar?

I was supposed to represent Nigeria at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, however due to some manoeuvres that I could not understand I was dropped from the team. Prior to that I had qualified to represent Nigeria at the All African Games in Algiers but some politicking ensured that I was dropped from the team despite making the trials. These acts were discouraging but I decided to keep on training and working hard because who knows, I could be favoured by one of the powers that be in the future. My dad was also a great source of encouragement because he always told me to be the best that I could be despite whatever challenges that came my way.

One day, I got a mail from Qatar asking if I was interested in coming to their country and I said yes but told them I had no funds to move. They told me to send my passport and I was given passage to Qatar. The rest as they say is history as I became a Nigerian-Qatari.

 

[zeio]

I'm more surprised by her choice of country instead of the lack of any visible/known connections. Is Austria poised to become a strong team? I imagine she would have much better luck representing Hong Kong, Taiwan or even Singapore.

Austria is actually not a bad choice. Ding Yi started the whole 海外兵團(overseas Chinese factions) when he started representing Austria in 1983. Together with Qian Qianli and Chen Weixing, they have improved the international standing of Austrian table tennis.

　　而另外一位现在还留在欧洲、现执教奥地利队的教练刘彦军表示，正是由于中国人的出现才让奥地利拥有了施拉格这样的世界冠军。

　　“丁毅属于较早到奥地利打球的那一批球员，当时那里的乒乓球水平非常低，”刘指导介绍说，当时奥地利人就知道在台子上拿球拍把球乒乒乓乓挡来挡去，直到丁毅的出现才让奥地利人真正认识了乒乓球。“可以这么说，没有丁毅就没有施拉格在2004年世乒赛上的辉煌。最终能够夺冠，施拉格要感谢三个中国人，丁毅、钱千里和陈卫星！”刘指导表示，因为这三个人的存在让施拉格在训练比赛中有了好的对手，这样就帮助他的技术能够突飞猛进，而在面对朱世赫这种削球打法时，由于有了和陈卫星共同训练比赛的经验，施拉格也能够较快进入状态，从而在巴黎世乒赛上一跃成为男子单打的冠军。

Liu Yanjun, another coach who still stays in Europe and is currently coaching the Austrian team, said that it was because of the emergence of the Chinese that Austria had a world champion like Schlager.

“Ding Yi belongs to the group of players who played in Austria earlier. At that time, the level of table tennis was very low,” Liu said. At that time, the Austrians knew that they would take the ping-pong on the table and block the ping-pong. It was not until the appearance of Ding Yi that the Austrians really knew about table tennis. "It can be said that without Ding Yi, there is no glory of Schlager in the 2004[2003 rather] World Table Tennis Championships. At the end of the day, Schrager could win the WTTC because three Chinese, Ding Yi, Qian Qianli and Chen Weixing!" Because the existence of these three people allowed Schlager to have a good opponent in the training competition, which helped his technique to advance by leaps and bounds. And in the face of Joo Saehyuk's chopping style, because of his experience training with Chen Weixing, Schlager also found his groove relatively quickly, thus becoming the champion of men's singles in the World Table Tennis Championships in Paris.

 

[driversbeat]

So ITTF's eligibility rules have changed, and players who changed their nationality will be able to represent their adopted associations at the World Cup and WTTC after 9 years.

If my calculations are correct, Hamamoto will be able to play for Austria at the 2026 WTTC and World Cup. Not that she would never have a chance in Japan, but I suspect that she'd much rather be the first or second player than a bench warmer. Plus, if everything goes to plan she would have two olympics under her belt by then.

Would be interesting to see her play against her former compatriots under a new flag.

Side note: Does this mean we'll get to see Han Ying in the 2020 WTTC German team?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Okay: if you are going to make comments, you need to clean things up. No more racist or sexist comments.

I am not going to call anyone out. But no more of those kinds of comments.

 

[lukyancheg]

Would be interesting to see her play against her former compatriots under a new flag.

You have a chance to see her tomorrow againt Ojio (Croatia Open)

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

I know this is an old thread, but I find Yui Hamamoto an intriguing player. Does she still represent Austria? It's a bit confusing because on the ITTF ranking she's listed under Japan. However, in player's matches, the latter matches show Austria. On worldtabletennis.com (which ought to be up to date), her flag shows the Japanese flag. Any chance she switched back to Japan?

In the few T League matches I've seen, she plays really well. It's a best of 5 T League match so I try not to read too much into it, but she beat Hina Hayata. She generates a lot of power, has a very effective high toss serve, and holds her own in high speed rallies. She has issues with the crossover point, but that can be corrected.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

the problem with Yui HAMAMOTO is that she was performing very well in the U21 category but she didn't make a breakthrough thereafter. It looked at the time she was taller than other J girls and could generate even more power for example, but she didn't really improve.

After that, i think she suffered mentally from the harsh internal competition and lost some motivation as it was clear she didn't have the level to get a top spot in the JNT again. She's on the same category than many very good Japanese players like Mori, Ando ... good enough to be playing WTTC for many other teams but not for Japan.

If you listen to her past interviews, she seems to be very shy, and lacking self confidence, and not very mature. Maybe a new and stronger woman and thus player will emerge from her path.

 

[iusepina]

I agree