Virus threat throws Hong Kong’s table tennis Olympic build-up into disarray with loss of quality training partners in China
- Hong Kong table tennis teams often travel to China before major events, or bring mainland players to the city, to help sharpen their skills
- Chinese players offer a wealth of quality and styles as sparring partners, even at provincial level
The Hong Kong table tennis team’s preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Games has been thrown into disarray following the outbreak of the new coronavirus in mainland China.
The men’s and women’s teams returned to Hong Kong on Monday after securing a full quota of places for the Games from the World Team Qualification tournament in Portugal last week.
However, they both rely heavily on either training camps in China ahead of major events or bringing in training partners from the mainland to sharpen their skills. China, as a table tennis powerhouse, is blessed with talent and can provide a range of players of varying styles who can provide high-quality training partners for the Hong Kong players – even at provincial level. Both Hong Kong teams went to Beijing for training camps before the qualification tournament.
“We had plans to bring the Beijing team to Hong Kong for training purposes and now it seems it has to be scrapped because of the new virus across China,” said head coach Chan Kong-wah, who also led the team at the German Open after the Portugal tournament. “We have not been here for more than two weeks but the situation seems to be becoming very serious. We may now consider other training options. We cannot do much about the spread of virus but athletes’ health should always come first.”
All players and officials were wearing surgical masks on their arrival in Hong Kong, having bought them during the competition in Portugal.
