New Zealand Wins Bid For 2008 World Junior Championships

After winning plaudits for hosting a successful World Junior Circuit tournament in Wellington in 2003, New Zealand went one step further and launched a bid for the glamour junior event, the World Junior Championships. The proposal was to host the event in North Harbour and a high-level delegation comprising North Shore City Mayor, CEO, and City Promotions Manager along with Ron Garrett and Karen Li representing TTNZ, faced the 65 member ITTF Council at Shanghai to present their bid. North Shore City met the cost of the trip and funded the production of a DVD, glossy booklet, a Power Point presentation and a static display in support of the bid.

The bid was successful.

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Li Chunli Retires

After a career which includes four Olympic Games, a singles Gold Medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, a 3rd place finish at the 1997 Women’s World Cup and a world ranking which peaked at 19, Li Chunli announced her retirement from competitive play. Her services to TTNZ continued as she was immediately appointed Women’s Coach.

At the time of her retirement she was still performing well internationally but was forced out of the game by a recurring shoulder injury. One of her best performances, the Commonwealth Games gold medal, was achieved at the age of 40.

Chunli’s earlier successes include three Oceania titles and nine New Zealand championships.

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Death of Two Former Men’s Champions

Russell Algie passed away in March at the age of 84. He was NZ Men’s Singles Champion six times between 1939 and 1951 and also won four NZ doubles titles. His collection of NZ titles would undoubtedly have increased had World War II not intervened, causing the suspension of the national championships for the peak war years of 1941-44. Russell was one of the inaugural inductees to the TTNZ Hall of Fame in April, 1999.

Errol Cheal passed away in September at the remarkable age of 98 years, 7 months. He enjoyed the distinction of being New Zealand first Men’s Singles Champion, winning the inaugural event in Wellington in 1934. He was an active administrator for Auckland TTA for many years and a Life Member of TTNZ.

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Junior Girls Win the Right to Compete at World Junior Championships

To qualify for this world event both the NZ girls and boys teams had to win the Oceania teams section of the World Junior Circuit tournament in Fiji in June. Both reached the final and, as expected, both faced Australia. The boys were beaten 2-3 in a very tight contest but the girls cruised to a 3-0 win.

This won a trip to Linz, Austria, in December for the girls team of Michelle McCarthy, Jenny Hung, Sophie Shu and Hanna Squire. They faced formidable competition, literally the best in the world. 16 teams competed and in the final round New Zealand faced Tunisia in a play-off for 15th/16th places. They won 3-2 to finish 15th. It’s worth noting that in 2004, when an Australian girls team represented Oceania, their final position was 16th.

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CEO Appointed

The appointment of Mike Loftus as CEO on 1 January ended a period of over five years during which management of TTNZ was in the hands of an Administration Officer backed by Board members who each combined a specific management role with their governing Board responsibilities.

Mike Loftus came to TTNZ from a consulting agency specializing in advising clients on sponsorship investment opportunities. On his appointment there was an immediate increase in media coverage of table tennis and before long he was finding new sources of funding.

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26th, and last, issue of Table Tennis Info Magazine

Table Tennis Info magazine had been launched in October, 1996 and steadily increased in size from 12 to 44 pages. The magazine was conceived, designed, edited and published by Robin Radford with sub-editing assistance from John Kiley. The final issue was dispatched directly to over 4,000 registered members in May.

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World Cadet Challenge

Steven Zeng and Jenny Hung qualified to represent Oceania at the World Cadet Challenge.

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New Zealander Reaches Australian Open Semi-final

Shane Laugesen distinguished himself and did New Zealand proud by reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open Championships.

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World Individual Championships

Aaron Li, Simon Wallace, John Cordue and Annie Yang earned the distinction of representing New Zealand at the World Individual Championships in Shanghai. It was a valuable learning experience but none of the players managed to proceed beyond the qualifying rounds.

David Jackson served as Deputy Referee for the event and Averil Roberts was an invited International Umpire.

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Malcolm Darroch emerged as the year’s undisputed Australasian Over 40 Men’s Champion. He won the Over 40 Men’s Singles at both the New Zealand Open Veterans Championships at Easter (in which a large Australian contingent competed), and won the same event at the Australian Veterans Championships in September. In Australia he was No 1 on the Over 40 Merit List and won 17 of his 18 singles matches in the teams event.

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Control of Major Tournament Entries Moves to Technical Committee
For the first time the processing of entries to national tournaments was fully under the control of the Technical Committee. Previously entries had been received at the National Office, submitted to contractor David Jackson for processing and the making of draws, and finally confirmed and approved by the Technical Committee.

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Mental Coach Appointed

Primarily to equip the New Zealand team for the pressure of the 2006 Commonwealth Games, TTNZ appointed Richard Petrie to coach the NZ squad on the mental aspects of top level competition.

A former New Zealand cricket representative, Richard had previous experience as mental coach at the NZ Rugby Academy.

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Hall of Fame

At a ceremony at the Annual General Meeting, six more top table tennis achievers were inducted into the TTNZ Hall of Fame to join the original six inductees.

This second intake included a long-term administrator and several former top players who in later years specialized in coaching and administration.

The inductees were:

Trevor Flint
Yvonne Fogarty
Bryan Foster
Richard Lee
James Morris
Ken Wilkinson.

At the same ceremony a Hall of Fame booklet was launched. Edited and published by Robin Radford, it contains illustrated profiles of all 12 inductees and the names of the inductee selection panel members. Click below to view.

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New Awards Introduced

Also part of the lavish ceremony in Auckland at which new Hall of Fame Inductees were honoured (refer above), was the presentation of a large batch of new awards. For some considerable time TTNZ has chosen a Player of the Year and a Junior of the Year, and the NZ Championships presentations include Junior Player of the Year and Junior Umpires (boy and girl) of the Year.

Eight more “people of the year” were declared this year, and former NZ test cricketer and broadcaster John Parker presented the awards to the inaugural recipients. The awards were for: Regional Coach, National Coach, Regional Veteran Player, National Most Improved Player, Regional Player, Regional Volunteer, National Volunteer and National Official.

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