Budapest Officially Bids for 2019 World Table Tennis Championships

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ITTF CEO Judit FARAGO and HTTA President Roland NATRAN announcing Budapest’s World Championships Bid

Budapest, Hungary has been announced as the sole bidder for the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships, an event they have not hosted since 1950.

The announcement came after ITTF officials visited the SYMA hall, the venue proposed for the Championships to determine that it was suitable to host the world’s biggest table tennis event.

At the announcement, ITTF’s CEO Judit FARAGO stated: “As a Hungarian, I am excited to learn that the Hungarian Table Tennis Association has an intention to bid for the event. We had inquiries from different countries from four continents, by the deadline Budapest was the only valid bid received.”

“Some potential bidders finally decided to target the World Team Championships in 2020, also the ITTF is having a transition period where size of the World Championships is under review and reduced, which gives good chances for those organisers and cities which before could not accommodate such a big event (800 players before, now reduced to approximately 550). This is something new and not very well known to many. It is now up to the Hungarian Table Tennis Association to make a good presentation to the AGM delegates, and to convince them that the event may be allocated to them.”

Hungary is regular organiser of ITTF events. They successfully host an ITTF World Tour and World Junior Circuit event every year, and Budapest will be the place of this year’s ITTF-European Championships.

The motivation behind the Hungarian Table Tennis Association’s bid is to increase popularity and reputation of table tennis sport and the bid is in line with the government’s present strategy to bring major sport events to the country.

Hungary, who has won the second most World Championships gold medals behind China, will present their bid to the ITTF AGM on 1 March and the delegates will decide if they approve their bid to host the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships.

If Hungary is successful with their bid, they will host the World Table Tennis Championships for individual events, which is held every odd year. The world’s best table tennis players will then head to Budapest to battle for men’s & women’s singles as well as the doubles and mixed doubles World Championships titles.

The upcoming World Table Tennis championships are:

2016 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Team)

2017 – Dusseldorf, Germany (Individual)

2018 – Halmstad, Sweden (Team)