Champions League Men | 25 Jul 2013

MECL natural step for Walter Wels

We are used to see Niederosterreich in Men’s European Champions League, the 2008 champions, but one more Austrian team will compete in the best club’s competition of Old Continent in the coming season. SPG Walter Wels, which comes from the small city in Upper Austria, Wels (approximately 60.000 inhabitants), has big table tennis tradition. As the club’s sport director Rudolf BRÄUML emphasizes – thanks to „Austrian Open”, which took place in Wels several times, the city is already known within the international table tennis community.

The SPG Walter Wels sports club was founded 25 years ago, from the former clubs UNION Wels and ASKÖ Wels. The founders were Gerhard DEMELBAUER, Walter WELLINGER, Hans BRÄUML, Raimund GUMPETSBERGER and Rudolf BRÄUML. The club’s best all-time achievements are four times runner-up in the Austrian national league and the quarterfinals in the ETTU-Cup.

“Our club takes part in national leagues with eight different teams of male players as well as with three teams of trainees. This makes a total of around 70 players in our club. The training sessions are being held by four professional trainers. Our top team is being coached by the very experienced trainer Edvard VECKO from Slovenia”, says Rudolf BRÄUML.

Walter Wels is placed in 2013/14 MECL Group C, beside newly promoted German champion Werder Bremen and French Hennebont GV. They will start their first MECL season at Bremen (September 6-9th) which is considered as one of favourites for the title. We asked Rudolf BRAUML why Walter Wels decided to play Men’s European Champions League and what the club expects from it?

“We always proceeded in small steps to gain experience, and this year’s small step was the participation in the MECL. We mostly expect to gain some international experience”.

- How will looks like Walter Wels` line-up in 2013/14 season?
“Our new number one, ZHAN Jian from Singapore, will play with our two young players Zsolt PETE from Serbia and Dominique PLATTNER from Austria, as well as our experienced player Lehel DEMETER from Hungary, which was able to win the Austrian ranking list in the national league four times”.

- What is the club’s goal in upcoming season?
“Our goal is to win at least one match, and then be able to reach the semi-finals in the ETTU-Cup. In the national league we’d like to get one step closer to national record breaker SVS Niederösterreich”.

The most important achievements in the club’s history are:

1999 Rise to the 2nd highest national league with three trainees
2005 Biggest success in the club’s history with the rise to the highest national league
2007 Third place of our top team and reaching the play-offs
2009 Runner-up in the national championships, 5th place in the second highest league for our second team
2010 Runner-up in the national championships, reaching the quarterfinals of the ETTU-Cup
2011 Runner-up in the national championships for the 3rd time

Alex MILETIC, EWT, Alex MILETIC, EWT