Snow causes havoc for NZ Junior Table Tennis Championships
Monday 25 July 2011, 5:22PM
By North Harbour Table Tennis Association
777 views
Snow in the South Island is causing havoc with travel arrangements for the teams coming to North Harbour for the NZ Junior Table Tennis championships.
Already the Otago team has had to withdraw as the airport isclosed due to snow and the next available flights are not till Wednesday evening. Canterbury teams have rescheduled flights for Monday evening but as the airport is still closed, there is no guarantee they will arrive on time either.
The team events start on Tuesday and Auckland teams will be looking to make a clean sweep of all team events if they can.
There are 6 categories:
- Under 18 Boys and Girls
- Under 15 Boys and Girls
- Under 13 Boys and Girls
Their main opposition will come from the usual contenders Wellington, Canterbury and host North Harbour.
191 players have entered the team’s event starting with grading matches on Tuesday morning.
The individual stars to watch out for include:
Kevin Wu (Auckland), who has been jet setting around the world in order to further his dream of becoming NZ’s first fully professional player since the likes of Li Chun Li and Peter Jackson. He is recently back from the Oceania Cup for senior men where he made the quarter finals.
Roger Rao (Auckland,) who is the 2010 NZ Open mens champion, now 14, the youngest NZ champion in history.
Ocean Belrose (Tahiti), who is another experienced international player who has had extensive play in France and is widely regarded as the best ever player to come out of Tahiti.
Angie Guo (Auckland) is another who has spent a lot of time recently training in China so it will be interesting to see how she goes against the local girls.
New Zealand Junior Table Tennis Championships
Venue: North Harbour Table Tennis stadium, 5a Akoranga Drive, Northcote
Dates: 26th to 30th July 2011
Times 9am to 9pm daily
Contact persons:
John Stapleton, Tournament Manager 09-418-3344
John Lea, TTNZ Executive Director 021-038-6025
Key times
Inter Association Junior Teams Finals 2pm Thursday
Under 18 and Under 13 Individual event finals from 5pm on Friday
Under 15 Individual event finals from 2pm Saturday