China to set up table tennis training centre in Europe

LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 07: Panfeng Feng of China celebrates after scoring a point against Germany in the final

Liverpool (Britain), Sep 29 – China, who swept clean all four table tennis gold medals at the London Olympic Games, is to set up a table tennis training centre in Europe, most likely England, to help the development of the sport.

“We have talked about this idea early this year with the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA). Hopefully they will make it in England,” Liu Jiayi, England’s national coach was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

Liu said he and Richard Yule, the chief executive of English Table Tennis Association, went to China for the talks.

“The idea was raised by both CTTA and the Table Tennis College of Shanghai Sports University. They will provide financial and coaching aid for the training centre and help improve the level of this sport,” said Liu, who has been coaching the English national team for some 20 years.

Yule was excited with the idea and said he hopes the centre should be in England and the best place is Sheffield, where the training centre of English national team is located.

“We had discussions with China not only about the training centre, but also the idea of bringing over more Chinese players to England and sending English players to China,” Yu said.