US-based Ghana table tennis coach, Courage Nanevie, organised the maiden competition which produced some great talents who have formed the nucleus of Accra-based Courage Table Tennis Academy where their talents are being honed.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Nanevie said he was impressed by the level of development of the talents he discovered a year ago and was ready to give more talents the opportunity to blossom.

He explained that for this year’s competition, a new twist had been added to the selection process, stating that instead of grouping the players within age limits, players would be rated through a justify-your-inclusion process from which they would be ranked and play in an elimination rounds.

The former national star said the competition was open to all players across the country up to age 17 but added that the eight players who are were selected last year to start the project have gained automatic qualification.

Explaining further, he said the main motivation for organising the annual championship was to groom the future generation of players to sustain the sport because the top stars were fading out.

Nanevie observed that players from countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco were miles ahead of Ghana because of the mechanisms put in place for their development and expressed the opinion that if Ghana aspired to reach such high standards, there was the need to develop the young talents now.

Besides the competition, the table tennis coach promised to also spend time to teach the young ones some techniques of the games after which all participants would be presented with balls, rubbers and branded T-shirts.

Unlike the first edition which was for unearthing fresh talents, this upcoming competition would also be used to assess some of the players who were picked from last year’s championship, as well as the outstanding players on March 11.