Youth from across the continent come to West Virginia to compete in table tennis

 





CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Skilled young athletes from around the continent are currently paying a visit to the Mountain State and vying to be the next top table tennis champion.

The 2023 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Pan American Youth Championship kicked off at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center Sunday and will go through July 30.

It’s a joint series of table tennis tournaments showcasing the top 166 Pan American athletes from 21 participating countries, including not only the U.S. but Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Trinidad.

The event is hosted in collaboration with ITTF Americas and USA Table Tennis (USATT), the national governing body of the sport that falls underneath the umbrella of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committee.

USATT CEO Mark Thompson told MetroNews that the youth championships feature two divisions, Under 15 and Under 19 age groups, all of whom commit most of their lives to participating in the discipline.

“I think to say that most of them dedicate their young lives to playing the sport would be quite accurate,” Thompson said. “It’s like any other sport that you want to be good at, it’s time-consuming, it’s dedication, it’s talent, of course.”

The tournament is comprised of 14 different categories separated within the two age divisions, both including a Boys’ and Girls’ Team, Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles.

Tashiya Piyadsa is one of the players competing in the championship representing the U.S. Under 15 division. She has been competing in table tennis for about 5 years now and said the inspiration came from her father.

“My dad was really good at it before and he kind of introduced me to it,” Piyadsa said. “My dad was like 8 times international champion, and he moved to the U.S. and that’s how I got into this sport.”

Piyadsa said she trains for a few hours a day after school and practices in matches with her friends to prepare for tournaments like this one. She said so far she has played in tournaments in Europe and Asia, and she expects to keep playing.

“I love this sport and it’s so much fun to communicate with other kids and also represent your own country,” Piyadsa said.

Thompson said competitive table tennis has now been deemed as one of the third largest sports in the world, and it’s a bit more elaborate than the typical game of ping-pong.

“Table tennis played at this level is a little bit different and in certain countries it really is the premiere sport; the number one and most obvious is China,” Thompson said. “China is a dominate country in the sport, they have been for a long time.”

Thompson said in countries such as China, people view table tennis in a similar way Americans might feel about the NFL or Major League Baseball.

Thompson said USATT has been around since 1933 and while it’s a little less popular than the major sports in America, he said the trend is only growing. 

He said the USATT recently competed in the U.S. Nationals held in Fort Worth, Texas and will compete in the U.S. Open in Ontario, California in December.

The Pan American Youth Championship was the first major table tennis tournament to be held in West Virginia and after it wraps up, it will qualify two Pan American singles champions per gender to the World Youth Championship that will take place from November 26 to December 3 in Nova Gorica, Slovenia.


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