Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Table Tennis Union (ZTTU) has begun the national team selection process for the 2023 World Table Tennis Championships to be staged in Durban, South Africa.
This will be the first time the World Table Tennis Championships take place in Africa since Cairo played host to the event in 1939.
Durban won the right to host the championships after polling 90 votes against 39 for Germany city Düsseldorf.
The ITTF’s flagship event will be the first major competition to be hosted by Durban since the coastal city was stripped of the 2022 Commonwealth Games for failing to provide the required financial guarantees.
The Durban International Conference Centre has been selected as the proposed venue and is now scheduled to welcome the world’s best table tennis players.
“We are preparing for the championships and are in the process of selecting players that will represent the country.
We are going to have tournaments around the country to select players.
We have already selected some players from the ZUSA (Zimbabwe Universities Sports Association) games.
We managed to get players we feel can represent the country. We could surprise bigger teams at the competition,” said ZTTU vice-president Luba Ndlovu.
“We have just coordinated the ZUSA Games and from there we want to resume training.
We are calling on schools, colleges and individuals to start training because we are in the process of organising tournaments.
“We are calling upon athletes to start training.
In Bulawayo they can come and train at Drill Hall on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
I was impressed with the level of competition that I saw at the ZUSA games.
There were fears that we had lost players due to Covid-19, but the games showed that there is a lot of table tennis talent in the country.”
ZTTU had a number of planned activities scheduled for last year, but they were cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The national junior team was set to compete in the World Junior Championships qualifiers at the end of March last year in Namibia, but out of 11 countries, only South Africa and the hosts Namibia attended the qualifiers.
In December this year, the senior national team is meant to travel for the regional championships, which are also qualifiers for the Africa Top 16 Championships, but the trip currently hangs in the balance.
One of the biggest local events, the annual Chinese Ambassador Cup, which pits Zimbabwe and China, was cancelled.
The plan made by the Chinese community to send young Zimbabwean players to camp in China in preparation for the World Junior Championships has also been put on hold.
– @innocentskizoe
Online Reporter