European Championships | 24 Sep 2015

Ekaterinburg-EXPO ready for the European stars

Photo: Courtesy ITTF

LIEBHERR 2015 ITTF European Championships starts on Friday

On Friday September 25^th at 10 AM European Champions, team of Portugal will start defending their title at the LIEBHERR 2015 ITTF European Championships. The opening contest against Hungary at the table no 1 in the International Exhibition Center “Ekaterinburg-EXPO” will kick off the Team’s Event.

In the Men’s Teams Event, Vice champions, team of Germany will play at the same time as Portugal, at table no. two against Poland. Unfortunately, once again they will be weakened. At the last moment Timo BOLL was forced to withdraw.

Women’s Team champions from Lisbon 2014, Germany, will play against Czech Republic their opening duel in Group Stages. Their rounds start at 1 PM on Friday. The matches in groups stage will be played for two days - knock out phase starts on Sunday, whilst Individual Events starts from Wednesday 30^th September.

For the first time ever the European Table Tennis Hall of Fame will be presented at the European Championships in Ekaterinburg. This is a new project of the European Table Tennis Union. It is already known that 19 male and 17 female athletes will be the first to become part of the Hall of Fame, among them there are Zoya RUDNOVA, Valentina POPOVA and Flura BULATOVA – legendary Soviet athletes. Certainly, the European Table Tennis Championships will arouse much interest not only among citizens of Ekaterinburg, but also the whole Russia.

Participants and guests will be able to get to know the legends of our sport. The exposition will be open for visitors from the first day of the Championships, and the official opening with the participation of the authorities of the European Table Tennis Union will take place on September 28th.

According to the plan the number of participants of the project will be increasing year by year. Later players will be joined by outstanding coaches, as well as those who have made a considerable contribution to the development of table tennis in Europe.

For the first time the individual and team European Table Tennis Championships will be held in the capital of Urals. It is the second European Championships to be held in Russia in its contemporary history. Before that Saint Petersburg hosted the European Championships in 2008. Also Moscow hosted the European Table Tennis Championships twice in 1970 and 1986, at that time women’s teams of the USSR won golden medals.

In Ekaterinburg, more than 800 participants and their representatives will come to the EXPO. The matches will be judged by 130 international referees and umpires.