A intensive work last few days before the start of the LIEBHERR World Championship took place in training camp in Kopenhagen. The Danish Table Tennis Federation in cooperation with the Olympic Committee organized a training session at Idraettens Hus in Broendby from 21st to 25th May. It was organised for the Danish and foreign athletes in order to be ready for the Düsseldorf challenges. They also invited internationals from Russia Greece Sweden and India.
The event was run by Swedish national coach Linus MERNSTEN. The Linus’s assistants YAO Cheugren and Chinese HI Wei Xin former coach of European champion in men’s singles of 2009 Michael MAZE were also on duty. They worked with Jonathan GROTH Tobias RASMUSSEN Anders LIND Claus NIELSEN Michael MAZE Mikkel HINDERSSON from Denmark Grigory VLASOV Mikhail PAIKOV Kirill SKACHKOV Alexander SHIBAEV Alexey LIVENTSOV Vladimir SIDORENKO from Russia Panagiotis GIONIS Tasos RINIOTIS Ioannis SGOUROPOULOS from Greece Sharath Kamal ACHANTA from India and Simon ARVIDSSON from Sweden.
On Wednesday on the penultimate day of the kamp the tournament was organised with six of the aforementioned athletes took part. Under the title “Ready for Düsseldorf” the tournament was held in Hillerod 30 minutes away from Broendby. It was open to the public and gathered around 100 fans. ACHANTA won 1st place. In the final he defeated SHIBAEV 3-1. In the semifinals the Indian beat 3-2 GROTH while SHIBAEV also succeded 3-2 against ARVIDSSON. GIONIS and LIND also competed.
The camp ended today with one more morning training session. All guests were delighted with hospitality and facilities and stressed that strong training in good conditions helped the athletes and stimulated their psychology.
I. Fakaros
