Originating in 1926 in London World Table Tennis Championships take place on a yearly basis in different locations around the globe. What someone has to know about WTTC is that since 1957(that the games were held in Stockholm, Sweden) the championships are held as individual and team events alternately. That means in every odd year we have individual WTTC while in every even year we have the international team events.
In 2012 (March 25th to April 1st) the WTTC team events were held in Dortmund, Germany. The big favorite was once again China which was the winner of the last 5 world team events. What’s left to see though was the reaction of the hosts that were the finalists in the team events of 2008 and 2010.The German national team was supported by nearly 16.000 spectators that believed in winning the world team’s title for the first time in their table tennis history.
The final match was played, as expected, in high level. The spectators were much pleased with the performance of the three German players Timo Boll,Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Patrick Baum but they left the stadium unhappy as the result was not the one they wished for. The Chinese team – Zhang Jike, Ma Long, Wang Hao – demolished their opponents ending up in an easy 3-0 victory and at the same time winning the world men team events for the 6th time in a row. South Korea and Japan took 3rd place.
I enjoyed watching the games very much because table tennis is my favorite sport. However, in the end, I was also a bit disappointed because I wanted a European team to win the title even though I must admit that the Asian level is one step higher than the European one. Sweden was the last European team to have won the WTTC in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia in 2000.
Table tennis is a very interesting and noble sport that anyone can watch and play. I suggest you give it a shot and who knows, someday you could be the one fighting to win titles at the domestic and international level.
Constantinos Christoudias – Tv Studio Lab Assistant
Table tennis player for 16 years
Member of the Onisilos Lakatamias Table tennis Team
Member of the University of Nicosia Table tennis Team
