What India can learn from table-toppers Germany, Japan

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 18

Start early if you want to succeed at the highest level in sports, they say. This is the principle the world’s sports powerhouses, who do well at the Olympics, follow. To make it work, these nations have developed a strong culture for sports at the school and grassroots level. This system is missing from Indian sport.

Take Table Tennis, for instance — for long, it has been dominated by China, Japan and Germany, given their dedicated training programme and state-of-the-art infrastructure. India’s paddlers have been able to make their presence felt at the Commonwealth and Asian Games, but they are not quite up to the World Championships or Olympics level.

For long, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Chetan Baboor and Mouma Das have carried the Indian flag in international tournaments. Among the youngsters, we have Soumyajit Ghosh, Harmeet Desai and Manika Batra. However, the success stories are few and far between. India’s bench strength doesn’t inspire much confidence.  

German lessons

Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov, four-time Olympics and World Cup medallist, credited the sports culture in Germany’s schools and a strong coaching system for the rise of table tennis in his country.

“We developed a sports culture which is like what is prevalent in Asia and America. Germany is on the top in table tennis in Europe because of its strong grassroots programme,” Ovtcharov told The Tribune.

“We have special scouts who go around in Germany to look for the most talented kids interested in table tennis.” These kids are then put in one of the sports centres in their cities to develop a liking for the game. “We have great coaches to take care of their training. Later on, the promising players are brought to the world-class German National Table Tennis Centre in Dusseldorf to prepare competitively,” added the 28-year-old Ovtcharov, who was born in the former Soviet Union and whose family moved to Germany when he was a child. “For players aged between 14 and 18, there is separate coaching staff, with some of the senior players to assist them. Then, for the players aged between 18 and 21, there are separate national coaches and support staff,” he added.

Ovtcharov, the world No. 5 and the top seed here, also acknowledged the government’s support. “With the help of government funding, we were able to build a table tennis centre in Dusseldorf, where a lot of players from other countries, including India, come and train,” he said. “There are many sponsors, promoters and the German Olympic Committee which support the federation with regular flow of money.”

View from Japan

Japan’s national team head coach Tasei Kunihito said his country’s provincial governments have a tie-up with schools under which the kids are trained for one week every month at government-run sports academies.

“We start training the kids at the age of 3. The kids aged 3 to 10 train for one week every month while the kids aged 10 to 15 train for two weeks six times in a year,” Kunihito said. “The players over 15 years train four times in a year with a month-long training programme in place. For major championships, some of our junior players travel with senior players to learn the finer nuances of the game. Our senior national men’s and women’s teams play competitively for a minimum 150 days in a year.”

13-year-old beats Sharath Kamal

Thirteen-year-old Japanese sensation Tomokazu Harimoto (in pic) ended Sharath Kamal's impressive run at the ITTF World Tour India Open, surprising the home hero in the men's singles semifinals. The reigning Junior world champion outplayed his 34-year-old opponent 11-7, 5-11, 11-7, 11-13, 11-9, 11-9. The Japanese meets top seed Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the final tomorrow. Harimoto took Kamal by surprise from the outset with his speed and agility around the table. The boy whipped winners at will and his forehand flicks came at lightening speeds. — PTI