Kolkata, December 23, 2015: The 77th Cadet and Sub-Junior National
Table Tennis Championships, which was formally inaugurated at the Netaji Indoor
Stadium here today, has already become a hit as the event has attracted the
maximum participation of teams and institutions ever, including all
northeastern states in attendance.
This, no doubt, is a great improvement on previous editions
as it reveals how more and more state teams are serious about participation in
the nationals. However, the fact remains that the organizers as well as the
competition management of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) had to
work overtime to accommodate all the 34 teams and summon more officials—there
are 60 of them—conduct the championships, particularly in less than five and a
half days.
Normally, the eight groups draw contains three teams in
early groups with the last couple of them having four teams. But, in order to
accommodate all those who have given their entries, the competition department
has the first six groups with four teams while the last two with five.
Interestingly, all seven northeastern states have sent their teams in different
categories, making the event even more important.
Probably, the easy accessibility or the lesser travelling
distance to Kolkata could have done the trick for all these northeastern teams
to consider participation here. Otherwise, except for a few NE states like Assam , Manipur,
Mizoram and Meghalaya the rest generally skip tournaments.
If this is the case in team events in which four players per
category is permitted, the individual events which start
from Saturday is bound to touch a figure of nearly 650 entries as,
apart from players who are part of the teams, four extra entrants are allowed
per category, per team in each category.
Coming to the difficult part, with teams having already
planned their travel details according to original schedule, one round of
matches on the opening day today will be confined to only those squads that
have checked in by evening. This means the matches could go beyond 10
p.m. while the rest of the teams that arrive late tonight will start their
day early tomorrow with last set of third round matches beginning
by 7.30 p.m. to bring things on track.
The main draws in all events are slated to begin on
Friday with the Cadet finals scheduled at 8 p.m. on the same
day. The sub-junior finals will be played on the following day.
“This is the most difficult part because we want to give all
those teams arriving late their due. They could not have changed their
reservations and arrive a day before as railway bookings are difficult to
obtain,” said competition manager Ganeshan Neelakanta Iyer.
“Luckily, the stadium is huge and we can have 20 tables but
the team members have to be here to play matches,” he added.
Meanwhile, during the formal inauguration earlier this
evening a small cultural event was held to enthrall the team members after the
march-past. The championships which conclude on Monday next will have
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee as
the chief guest during the medal distribution ceremony.
TTFI Press release
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