In Incheon Korea Republic ahead of the 2018 ITTF Star Awards and Seamaster ITTF World Tour Grand Finals ten of the ITTF Athletes Commission members joined by interim Chair and IOC member RYU Seungmin had the task of electing their new chair and deputy chair positions for the next four years.
Zoran PRIMORAC (Croatia) and Jean-Michel SAIVE (Belgium) delivered their candidate presentations. After the voting procedure ended it was PRIMORAC who succeeded as the elected Chair of the Commission.
Chairwoman of the ETTU Athletes Commission Galia DVORAK (Spain) and Dana ČEHOVÁ (Czech Republic) both are elected Deputy Chair. It was decided by the Commission to appeal the gender balance rule on account of a lack of male candidates and allow two female Deputy Chairs.
In his program PRIMORAC highlighted the importance of strengthening the Athletes’ Commission in order to better perform its duties.
“My first obligation would be in collaboration with all of Athletes Commission members to improve operational capacity of AC by: defining our objectives and tasks for the next 4 years; developing and secure resources needed to achieve our objectives and tasks and setting-up a clear division of rolls and responsibilities inside of Athletes Commission ” stated PRIMORAC.
Legendary player who is active for 30 years in Professional table tennis Olympic medalist who was member of the Olympic team at seven Games; winner of 8 World Championships medals at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games the Croatian flag bearer is the right person to represent the players.
“ I want to represent viewpoint and protect the rights of the table-tennis players both conventional and para players in decision-making bodies. Our representation should be reflected through: proactive communication with the key stakeholders strong involvement in ITTF’s decisions control of ITTF Tournament Directives full implementation encouragement of National Federations to establish national ACs strengthening collaboration with ITTF-Foundation and be more active in charitable and humanitarian activities.”
One of the key Athletes Commission tasks is to support table-tennis players to succeed in their sporting and non-sporting career. As Zoran received the accolade of Master of International Relations and Diplomacy at the Libertas International University in Zagreb he is successful in both social spheres.
“In order to give the players the best possible support we need to increase awareness of the athletes’ viewpoint on issues and challenges. We would be able to do that by conducting surveys amongst players and follow up on their outcomes also we will try to establish direct two-way communication channel to the players. We will also try to offer strong promotion of dual carrier concept by pursuing development of tailor made educational platform for TT players.”
PRIMORAC is also Sport Manager and Coach in UMMC in Russia and Executive Board Member of Croatian Table Tennis Association.
