Author Archives: Palmerm
Team GB take Gold in Czech Republic
11 Table Tennis players with an Intellectual Disability who are players from South Cheshire Special Needs Table Tennis Club National Squad and come from all over the country went with coaches and escorts from South Cheshire Special Needs Table Tennis Club to Hradec Kralove for their National and Open Table Tennis Competition with players from all over Czech Republic and Austria.
Jeffrey Jarvis (East Midlands), Patrick Cox (East Midlands), Alistair Feltham (Southern), Duncan Feltham (Southern), Daniel Williams (Kent), Howard Tomlinson (West Yorkshire), Jason Reynolds (Wisbech), Simon Green (Bletchley), Jessica Bromley (Wolverhampton), Jenny Tuner (Shropshire) and Jacqueline Smith (Essex) all took part.
Jacqueline Smith taking Gold in the Ladies Singles Division 1, Silver in Ladies Doubles with partner Jessica Bromley who took Silver in the Singles and Gold in Ladies Team Event with Jessica and Jenny.
Great Britain Male Team 1 (Jeffrey, Patrick, Simon and Daniel) took Bronze in the Division 1 Male Team Event and GB Team 2 (Alistair, Duncan, Jason and Howard) took Bronze in the Male Team Event.
Well done to all players an support staff involved.
Craig’s Hard Work Recognised
Last night BTTAD member Craig Allen was awarded by Worcestershire Table Tennis Association the John Barber Memorial Trophy which is given to a Junior each year for their commitment and achievements during the previous season. Craig’s was awarded mainly for his achievements in the ‘Disability’ section and in light of his acheivements below:
Winner of two Burton and Uxbridge Disability Tournaments
West Midlands Junior Champion (Disability)
BTTAD Nationals - National Junior Runner-up
UK School Games - Member of the Disability Team that won 2 gold medals
Worcestershire School Games - Represented South Bromsgrove High School
with his team taking gold (able-bodied)
DSE Championship - Group B, Men’s Singles Open Finalisit
Craig’s league team also came second in the Redditch and Bromsgrove league division 2 and won the Field and Son cup.
The photo above shows Nigel Anson (ETTA coach - Evesham Development Squad & Arrowvale Table Tennis Club) presenting the trophy to Craig at a training session at the club.
Merseyside Open Disabled Table Tennis Tournament 2012
Greenbank Sports Academy and Merseyside Sport Partnership are jointly organising this one day BTTAD ranking event on Sunday 9th December 2012. This will be the first ranking event following the London 2012 Paralympic Games and promises to welcome a range of participants from throughout Britain. It is hosted at Greenbank Sports Academy, Liverpool which is a purpose built sports facility for disabled people which also has onsite accessible accommodation.
The Entry Form can be downloaded below:
Statement of Commitment - Foundation Level of the Equality Standards for Sport
The British Table Tennis Association for People with Disabilities are looking to achieve the Foundation level of the Equality Standards for Sport.
The work that is being undertaken by the whole Association will build on the structures and programmes already in place and is supported by the English Table Tennis Association.
The Chairman, Peter Taylor, and Secretary, Mike Smith, (pictured above) today made the commitment to ensure that everyone within BTTAD not only understand what they need to do to achieve equality but also to put in place clear plans, policies, and structures to increase the opportunities for a diverse range of people to enjoy all that table tennis has to offer.
Peter Taylor stated:
One of the BTTAD targets regarding Governance issues is to achieve the equality standards and we are working towards attaining that goal.
Mike Smith said:
BTTAD is fully committed to the adoption and development of Equality Standards in line with UK Sport ‘s requirements for funding support for National Governing Bodies.
Paralympics 2012: revenge for Will Bayley as Great Britain’s men and women claim double table tennis bronze
ParalympicsGB bagged two Team bronze medals at ExCeL to bring Britain’s Table Tennis haul to four, the most ever at a Paralympic Games.
The Class 6-8 trio of Will Bayley, Ross Wilson and Aaron McKibbon beat Germany 3-0 to add men’s Team bronze to the Singles medals won by Bayley and Paul Davies.
“This means even more to me than my individual medal because for these guys to have already won a Paralympic medal will be such great experience when they go to Rio,” said Bayley.
Then the women’s pair of Sara Head and Jane Campbell battled back from two matches down to beat Italy 3-2 and secure Class 1-3 bronze.
Having come back from Beijing empty handed, Britain’s Table Tennis squad leave London 2012 with one silver and three bronze, the culmination of a renaissance guided by Slovenian performance director Gorazd Vecko and his training regime at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport.
Britain’s previous best Table Tennis tally was two – a men’s Team silver and women’s Singles bronze at both the Sydney and Athens Games.
For Head and Campbell, tonight’s victory was especially sweet after they failed to secure medals in the Singles event, and almost went out of the Team competition in the quarter-finals.
Head, who lost her Class 3 Singles bronze medal match earlier this week, said: “To be so close and to smell it, mentally it was hard work coming back into this, having been so close and wanting so much to come away with a medal.
“We’ve done it. It’s fantastic.”
The British pair, good friends away from the table, battled through a five-match epic in Thursday’s quarter-final with Turkey and they had to repeat their heroics against a strong Italian team.
Once Campbell had lost to Michela Brunelli in four games, and Head to Pamela Pezzutto by the same score, Head finally got the Britons on the scoresheet with a hard-fought victory over Brunelli, 14-16, 11-9, 11-8, 11-7.
Campbell responded to her friend’s example, beating Pezzutto in three games to set up the deciding doubles. Head and Campbell won the first game against Pezzutto and Clara Podda but lost the next two and were again staring defeat in the face.
But the Britons have shown their resolve more than once in this tournament and they did so again to take the final two games, 11-3, 11-4, and the bronze medal.
“It was incredible,” said the 32 year old Head from Glamorgan. “When we came back, I think our previous game against Turkey was in our minds. We just said, ‘Relax and enjoy it, anything can happen’.
“To be down and to come back and win a Paralympic medal is just incredible. I don’t know what to say. I was talking to myself and just saying, ‘Please, please’.
“It was a difficult match. Our goal was to stay out there as long as we could and boy, did we do that.”
Campbell, who comes from Barnsley, added: “It was so many mixed emotions, from thinking we were out, to the fightback that Sara put up.
“I just thought, I’m not going to give up either, and that was it. Off we went and it just got better and better.”
The men’s victory was in stark contrast to the women’s as Bayley and Wilson needed only three singles matches, and 66 minutes, to sweep away the Germans.
Wilson set the tone, outplaying Thorsten Schwinn in 16 minutes, 11-2, 11-7, 11-5, before Bayley avenged his Class 7 Singles final defeat by seeing off Jochen Wollmert by a similar score.
The German, who has won five Paralympic gold medals, floored Bayley in an emotional five-game final last Sunday, but the 24 year old Sussex man delivered a crushing blow to the German, winning the second singles match tonight in 20 minutes, 11-9, 11-2, 11-8.
Wilson finished it off, beating Wollmert in another three-gamer, 12-10, 11-4, 12-10, meaning McKibbon didn’t even need to unzip his tracksuit top.
Caoch Greg Baker explained how they had beaten Wollmert twice in 40 minutes.
“Will has played Jochen Wollmert eight times since Beijing and the only time he lost to him was in the final here. So we calmed him down, we went back to the tactics that win him matches and he did the same today,” said Baker.
“It was good that he played him before Ross because Ross watched how Will played him so Ross could do exactly the same. Ross kept his nerve and he dealt with the pressure really well to bring it home for us.”
“To beat Wollmert tonight was pretty special as he beat me in the final,” said Bayley.
“They are going to be the best in the world and it is a privilege to play with them. This is quite a good team and we are going to be even better in Rio.”
Wilson, from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, said: “To get a medal is amazing. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It is just a brilliant feeling.
“We had a good day today and worked well as a team. When we came out we just said, ‘Let’s go and do it’.
Londoner McKibbon added: “I’m glad I didn’t get to play as it would have meant it was down to the doubles. If I had said a year ago that I was going to come here and win a medal I think that would have been very unrealistic.
“We were upset last night not to be through to the final but I’m very happy to have a bronze medal.”
Head said that Britain’s record Table Tennis haul was a result of hard work and inspiration.
Paralympic Results:
Men’s Class 6-8:
Great Britain 3-0 Germany
Ross Wilson bt Thorsten Schwinn 3-0 (11-2, 11-7, 11-5)
Will Bayley bt Jochen Wollmert 3-0 (11-9, 11-2, 11-8)
Ross Wilson bt Jochen Wollmert 3-0 (12-10, 11-4, 12-10)
Women’s Class 1-3:
Great Britain 3-2 Italy
Michela Brunelli bt Jane Campbell 3-1 (12-10, 8-11, 11-9, 11-3)
Pamela Pezzuttto bt Sara Head 3-1 (11-7, 17-15, 9-11, 12-10)
Sara Head bt Michela Brunelli 3-1 (14-16, 11-9, 11-8, 11-7)
Jane Campbell bt Pamela Pezzutto 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 11-7)
Head/Campbell bt Brunelli/Pezzutto 3-2 (11-6, 7-11, 7-11, 11-3, 11-4)
Paul Davies and Will Bayley Win Singles Medals
Paul Davies upset a player four places above him in the world rankings to secure a class 1 Singles bronze at the ExCeL Great Britain’s second Table Tennis medal of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
“I’ve been playing for 21 years, since the day my son was born, and now I’m a Paralympic bronze medallist,” said Welshman Davies, 45.
“I thought the Opening Ceremony was awesome when we came out into the stadium but to have that crowd in a bronze medal match – and they were behind us all the way – was unbelievable.”
“I hope I’ve inspired the younger generation who have got disabilities. There is sport out there for every disability and if they pick the right one and work hard enough, maybe they will be sitting where I am in Rio in four years’ time.”
Davies’s bronze followed Will Bayley’s silver, secured in emotional scenes on Sunday night.
After three tight games, Davies was 2-1 down against world No.4 Lee Chang Ho of Korea but levelled with an 11-5 win in the fourth.
A tense final game saw him miss two match points. His coach, 1996 Paralympic medallist Neil Robinson, called a time out but Davies missed another chance before converting the fourth opportunity.
“I don’t know what’s going on with me lately – it always seems to be going to a fifth set,” Davies added. “He is an awesome player and better than me but I treated this bronze medal match as my final. I knew what I had to do – I just had to hit the seismic serve into the crossover, and I did it.”
Two other Britons missed out on medals, however, as Sara Head was beaten by veteran Slovakian Alena Kanova and Kent teenager Ross Wilson went out to world No.2 Emil Andersson of Sweden.
Head, competing in her first semi-final in a major competition and at her first Paralympics, was pleased to be able to take a game from Kanova, the world No.3, who has won medals at every major during her career.
Head, 32, from Pontypridd, came out fighting to take the first game 11-2 but Kanova changed tactics, attacking more to take the next two, followed by an 11-3 victory in the fourth.
“Where I took my fight to her, she came fighting back. I knew it was going to be a tough one. She is a very experienced player,” said Head, a former Wheelchair Basketball player who took secret Table Tennis lessons in an attempt to beat her boyfriend and discovered she had a talent for the sport.
“It’s been an unbelievable experience – what I’ve got from it is priceless. The messages I’ve had and the support has been unbelievable and it really has lifted me up.”
Head will now concentrate on the Team event, in which she has already won a European title and world bronze with partner Jane Campbell.
“I know for a fact after our warm-up this morning that we are both playing better and better, so I know we are going to come out fighting,” she added.
The 3-0 scoreline from Wilson’s defeat was an unfair reflection of a match in which the 17 year old scored 27 points and on several occasions was unlucky to miss the table by millimetres.
“It was really good experience. I never really expected to get here in the first place,” said Wilson, twice a national doubles champion in able-bodied competition and ranked fourth in the world in class 8.
“He played really well and I’ve got to give him a lot of credit for that. Hopefully I can come back much stronger next time.”
Credits: Paralympic GB Press Release