The 2023 ORLEN European Youth Championships are now behind us. After 10 days of fierce battles Romania is at the top of the medal standings with the most number of gold medals – 6 and the most overall medals – 17. Poland Germany and Portugal follow. It is a clear victory for Romania achieving 6 gold medals just like in 2022 but also securing more silver and bronze medals.
Behind the numbers lie more interesting facts:
In the Under 15 Girls Singles Hanka KODETOVA and Nina GUO Zheng played the youngest final ever. Both are still Under 13. While KODETOVA reached the semifinals of the U13 championships in June in Zagreb here she won the Under 15 title. Only two Under 13 players did that before her: Otilia BADESCU in 1983 and Olga NEMES in 1981. Good company to be in.
In the Under 15 Boys Singles Tiago ABIODUN followed in the footsteps of Marcos FREITAS who won the cadet boys in 2002 and the junior boys in 2006 and was until now the only Portuguese player with a singles title in youth championships.
In Under 19 Girls Elena ZAHARIA won two titles at these European Youth Championships raising her total number to 7 which brings her into the top 10 of the best players at the EYC. She is now on par with Galia DVORAK. The record holder is Vladimir SAMSONOV with 13 titles. In the girls’ category Adina DIACONU leads this ranking with 12 titles.
In Under 19 Girls Doubles Zuzana WIELGOS and Anna BRZYSKA are the first Polish players to win this title.
In Under 15 Boys doubles Patryk ZYWORONEK and Mateusz SAKOVICZ are the first full Polish pair to win this title. In 2006 (Pjotr CHODORSKI) and 2018 (Maciej KUBIK) there were Polish winners but both had Croatian partners (CHODORSKI with Borna KOVAC and KUBIK with Ivor BAN).
| European Youth Championships Table Tennis 2023 | ||||||
| Medals table | ||||||
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | |||
| 1 | Romania | 6 | 4 | 7 | 17 | |
| 2 | Poland | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 | |
| 3 | Germany | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |
| 4 | Portugal | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| 5 | France | 1 | 4 | 6 | 11 | |
| 6 | Czechia | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |
| 7 | Austria | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| 8 | Spain | 3 | 3 | |||
| 8 | Italy | 3 | 3 | |||
| 10 | Croatia | 1 | 1 | |||
| 10 | Wales | 1 | 1 | |||
| 10 | Netherlands | 1 | 1 | |||
| 10 | Türkiye | 1 | 1 | |||
