Click photo to enlarge
Chinese table tennis coach Wang Qi gives a demonstration at
College Street School in Caversham yesterday. Peter
McIntosh.
Respected Chinese table tennis coach Wang Qi will remain
in Dunedin for another year and would like to coach another
future Olympic champion.
Wang, who had a useful amateur career in China, coached
Olympic champion Ma Lin when he was a junior in the mid-1980s
and hopes his next champion will come from Otago.
The 55-year-old first picked up a table tennis bat when he
was 7 and started taking the sport seriously when he went to
junior table tennis school as a 9-year-old.
But Wang was forced to put his table tennis career on hold
during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1966.
"School stop, study stop, everything stop," Wang said, in a
heavy Chinese accent.
"Almost eight years I never play."
Wang eventually returned to the sport and in 1999 helped the
Liaoning province win the team title in the Chinese amateur
contest and claimed third place in the singles the same year.
He migrated to Fiji in 2001 and got the opportunity to come
to New Zealand in 2006.
Keen to reverse its flagging fortunes, the Otago Table Tennis
Association brought Wang to New Zealand on a two-year
contract to help rejuvenate the sport.
He had an immediate impact both as a player and a coach.
He helped the Otago men's team win the South Island Open for
the first time in 15 years and also won the South Island Open
individual title last year, beating players half his age.
However, the association was unable to continue funding Wang
so Dunedin businessman and table tennis enthusiast Peter Hau
provided a sponsorship package which allowed the association
to extend Wang's contract for a further 12 months.
The 28-year-old is one of the co-founders and creative
directors of local website business Vouchermate.co.nz and
wanted to put something back into the sport.
"I just had an idea that I wanted to help table tennis as a
whole because it has really helped me develop as a person,"
Hau explained yesterday.
"I've heard a lot of people say Otago used to be the best
table tennis region and I thought it was a great opportunity
to give something back to our community," Hau said.
As well as training the Otago squads, Wang will visit Otago
schools to promote and develop the sport.
He was at College Street School in Caversham yesterday.
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