Once again, the Ottawa Table Tennis Club (OTTC) hosted the Ontario Ottawa Table Tennis Challenge over the Labour Day weekend. To put a fun spin on things in the interest of attracting a variety of skill levels and younger players, the OTTC decided to host the tournament under a 'Festival' umbrella.
The four-day event included Veterans (55 and over), a Doubles event, U400 and the ever popular Open catagory. As always, many exciting points were had, thrilling games and some extremely 'as-close-as-you-can-get' games were had! (the cheering said it all). Players as far as from Toronto and Montreal were also in on the action - and prize money!
The tournament also provided a chance for some of the players in OTTC's new High Performance Program to play in their very first tournament. You could clearly see that all the hard work and training that they had put in over the past few months was really paying off, as their progress was astounding! For those not in the know, the OTTC has begun being proactive in creating programs for kids to help build a solid table tennis foundation and to provide them with the chance of competing at the National and International levels; something that is very dear to OTTC's heart and which Canada's table tennis community really needs.
The OTTC is looking forward to hosting it's next event... so stay tuned for information on upcoming tournaments and congratulations to everyone who came to play and make the tournament a success!
Tournaments require a team of volunteers, organizers and support. The OTTC would like to sincerely thank the following people and organizations:
Peter Blackman (Tournament Referee)
Yousif Makkawi (Administrator and Scorekeper)
Priyanka Pareek (Coach and Organizer)
Samir Joshi (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
Zhou Wan Fang (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
Slava Karpov (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
Wayne Duford (Photographer, Media Coordinator)
Shelly Chang (Youth Volunteer Scorekeeper)
John de Carle (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
Viet Nguyen (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
Martin Sabijon (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
Dominic Chen (Volunteer Scorekeeper)
All the local and out-of-town players who came out to make for an exciting event!
The many spectators
Ontario Table Tennis Association (for Sanctioning the Tournament)
Table Tennis Canada (for providing the medals)