After the Olympic Games in Tokyo which have been postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic Tamara BOROS will take over the office of Jie SCHÖPP as national women’s coach. Already from 2020 the current coach of the Boarding School at the German Table Tennis Centre in Düsseldorf the DTTZ as well as of the female U23 squad of the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) BOROS is to take over tasks at the women’s squad together with SCHÖPP and support her during major events thus ensuring the best possible handover.
Jie SCHÖPP remains the responsible national coach and head coach of the women’s team until the Olympic Games in Tokyo. After the Olympics SCHÖPP’S task will be to lead the female junior team into the future together with national junior coach Lara BROICH. SCHÖPP will take over the U15 division Broich will be responsible for the U18 players.
“At the end of an Olympic cycle all Germany sports associations are always called upon to implement changes to set a new impuls by our National Olympic Committee” explains DTTB Sports Director Richard PRAUSE. “We as DTTB are in the enviable position to be able to employ two former world class players and equally experienced and highly qualified as well as successful coaches in the female sector. Our goal is to continue to be successful with the women in the future”.
With Jie SCHÖPP the German women sensationally won silver at the Olympic Games in Rio 2016 and secured their qualification for the Olympic Games in Tokyo by winning gold in the team competition of the European Games in their first attempt. Schöpp’s European Champion team achieved the hat-trick with titles in 2013 2014 and 2015. She was voted Coach of the Year by the German Table Tennis Coaches Association in the season 2015/16 .
As an active player the 107-time national player won two European Championship titles with the team and one bronze for Germany at the 1997 World Championships. In the individual competitions the ace of defence won the prestigious Europe Top 12 twice and three times European bronze in the individual competitions.
Tamara Boros has been working with the DTTB as a boarding school head coach since 2017 and has been responsible for the U23 squad since this year. As a player she was not only the best European for a long time but also the toughest competitor of the Chinese women. The four-time Olympic participant won bronze in the singles at the 2003 World Championships and like Schöpp the Europe Top 12 twice. In 2015 Tamara Boros was inducted into the “Hall of Fame” of the European Table Tennis Union.
Parallel to her coaching career she successfully completed her studies of sports in her home country Croatia and obtained a master’s degree at the Faculty of Kinesiology in the field of sports coaching. In her master thesis she examined the development of playing systems in modern women’s table tennis. With her university degree the 42-year-old former world number two also formally fulfils the criteria of the German National Olympic Committee which strongly recommends scientific qualification for professional coaches at the national level.
