Jamie Liu Representing Europe in Dohar

Year 7 pupil Jamie Liu has been working incredibly hard over the course of this last term, with competing in the UK Maths Challenge, training at sports at College and even making award-winning videos in ICT. However, these amazing feats aren’t enough for the power-house that is Jamie, and he has impressed once again by heading to Dohar to play competitive table tennis at the World Hopes Week and Challenge.

Representing Europe at the 2016 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Hopes Week & Challenge at the Aspire Dome in Doha, Jamie Liu, who is also a member of Kingfisher Table Tennis Club in Woodley, travelled to Qatar with coach Daniel Basterfield on 29 May to begin a week of intensive training and competitions. 

Jamie was in good company as youngsters from around the world competed in the event. Only 32 boys and girls took part in the event, meaning that the competition was fierce! The primary goal of the competition was to support the national table tennis associations in identifying talented young players, and enhancing their chances of future success by working with expert coaches from other countries around the world. Jamie successfully booked a place in the main knockout rounds by winning his qualification group, overcoming difficult rounds with players from Egypt, Australia and Qatar.

A very close defeat in the deciding set in the quarter-final against Erik Huzsvar of Hungary meant that Liu needed to beat Carlos Fernandez of Peru in the classification to reach the fifth and sixth-place play-offs – and he did it convincingly by overturning a first-set deficit to win 3-1. He was eventually edged out in his final match against Vishwa Deenadayalan of India to finish in 6^th place overall.  Navid Shams of Iran and Elena Zaharia of Romania were the winners of the Boys and Girls events respectively.

During the week, the visiting coaches were engaged in a series of lectures designed to support their professional development and boost their knowledge and understanding in topics including talent identification, strength and conditioning, sports psychology, biomechanics, basic tactics and the profile of a professional coach.

Commenting on the event, coach Basterfield, a former Junior National Champion himself, said: “I’m delighted with how the week has gone for Jamie – he trained very hard and listened well to coaching instructions in his first world event – we have both learned something valuable from this experience and I hope we’d have more chances to work together in the future.”

Jamie commented that “It was a tough week with all that physical training but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I’ve made new friends from all over the world and I’ve learned so much from great coaches like Dan Basterfield and Dirk Wagner [Head Coach at Werner Schlager Academy and at the World Hopes Week].”