Other Events | 2 Nov 2014

Europe clinch seven medals in Bridgetown

After fantastic success in Girls and Boys Teams Event at the 2014 ITTF World Cadet Challenge in Bridgetown, Barbados, and gold and silver medal for the European players, Old Continents’ representatives added five more to their treasury. ETTU Development M

After fantastic success in Girls and Boys Teams Event at the 2014 ITTF World Cadet Challenge in Bridgetown, Barbados, and gold and silver medal for the European players, Old Continents’ representatives added five more to their treasury.

ETTU Development Manager Neven CEGNAR was with the teams and he was delighted by great success. “Romania’s Cristian PLETEA and Moldova’s Andrei PUTUNTICA clinched gold in the Junior Boys Doubles Event. Also PLETEA added another bronze to the list in Singles Event. Adina DIACONU of Romania won bronze in Singles and in Doubles with Lisa LUNG of Belgium she clinched silver. Maria TAYLAKOVA of Russia and Daria TRIGOLOS of Belarus also won bronze”, said CEGNAR.

In the final of the Boys’ Doubles competition PLETEA and PUTUNTICA upset the rankings. The third seeds, they beat the top seeded partnership of HWANG Minha of Korea and Yuto KIZUKURI of Japan to reserve the top step of the medal podium. Furthermore, they succeeded in four straight games (11-9, 11-5, 11-9).

“We were confident and we play like crazy today; we have played together before, we played together last year in Constanta and we won on that occasion”, said Cristian PLETEA. “I told Csilla BATORFI, our coach, that before the event even started that we wanted to play together.”

Clearly it was a very good decision; the left hand and right hand combination worked to perfection. “I trust Cristian; I can play push, flip top spin or whatever and I know he will respond and put the next ball on the table”, added Andrei PUTUNTICA. “Today we played so strongly; really I don’t think we’ve ever played as well as this ever; perfect tactics.”

Korea’s HWANG Minha and Japan’s Mima ITO, the top seeds and favourites for gold, won the respective Boys’ Singles and Girls’ Singles. Asia have suffered a three-two defeat at the hands of Europe in the Girls’ Team final but Mima ITO of Japan completed the whole tournament unbeaten and handled the pressure of being the top seed and favourite for honours. In the final of the Girls’ Doubles a second title ending in the hands of Mima ITO. She partnered her victim in the singles final, KIM Jiho to success; the pair beating the second seeded partnership of Romania’s Adina DIACONU and Belgium’s Lisa LUNG to claim the top prize (11-7, 4-11, 11-5, 11-7).

Gold in both the Girls’ Singles and Girls’ Doubles events finished in the hands of Asia; Europe challenged with Adina DIACONU reaching the semi-final stage of the Girls’ Singles event, losing to KIM Jiho.

“I think the results that we have seen in the individual events show how well our girls played to win the team title; on the way to the Girls’ Singles final Mima ITO dropped only one game, Kim Jiho won every match four-nil”, said Marc CLOSSET. “Furthermore, look how well LEE Ka Yee played; she reached the semi-final.”