Emmanuel Christiansson from Sweden was appointed by the International Table Tennis Federation to conduct the course.

In spite of the intensity of the course, the South African Table Tennis Board (SATTB) was proud to congratulate the following coaches on making it through the first stage on the road to becoming accredited ITTF Level 2 coaches: Margie Luckay, Clement Meyer, Anver Lyners, Nigel Adams, Neville Parker, Melissa Witbooi, Greg Naik, Simon Gologolo, Sameera Maal, Ashlyn Wagner, Sarel Oberholster, Bheki Khumalo and Henry Esau.

The way forward for the coaches is 50 hours of coaching of which five hours must be supervised by a coach appointed by the SATTB.
Each Coach must also keep a log sheet of hours spent coaching and of the activities undertaken.

On completion of the above processes, a confidential coaching report signed by the SATTB appointed coach together with a copy of the coaching log sheets will be sent to Mr Christiansson for verification and accreditation.

The SATTB wishes all the above coaches well with their coaching future.

Aletta Moll was involved in all of the silver medals. She was runner-up in the women’s open wheelchair category and the women’s singles (class 2-3) and then teamed up with Rosebelle Riese to take silver behind Mexicoin the women’s teams class 2-5.

There were also bronze medals for Keitumetse Jacobs in the women’s open (standing) category women’s singles (class 7-8) and RIese also took bronze in the women’s singles (class 4-5).

This will be part of their preparation for the World Table Tennis Para Championships in Korea from 25 October to 3 November.

The experience will be invaluable as part of their preparation and experience gaining cycle of pre-World Championships activities:

The Costa Rica event already boasts an entry of 80 players from 16 countries.

The players making the trip are: Alett Moll, Rosebelle Riese, Keitumetse Jacobs, Claire Fransman, Zakhele Khuzwayo and Thiagen Natesan. Their support team will be made up of: Finn Nilsen (team manager), Bernavin April (Assistant manager/coach), Sameera Maal (head coach) and Christien vd Merwe (physiotherapist).

The South African Table Tennis Board (SATTB) and the South African Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD) wishes them good luck and looks forward to an inspiring performance record from all the athletes.

The South African Table Tennis Board (SATTB) on Monday announced the team for the championships between 25 October and 3 November 2010.

The athletes were selected on the basis of their performance at the 2009 African Continental Para Table Tennis Championships in Johannesburg in December 2009.

The players doing duty in Korea are: Nosipho Nxumalo, Keitumetse Jacobs, Alisha Sadler-Almeida, Rosebelle Riese, Alett Moll, Zakhele Khuzwayo and Johannes de Beer.

The SATTB congratulates the athletes on their achievement.

The 14-strong South African contingency (four men – Theo Cogill, Shane Overmeyer, Luke Abrahams & Kurt Lingeveldt, three women – Khanyisile Madlala, Sameera Maal & Zodwa Maphanga, two coaches – Marcus Gustafson & Margie Luckay, three delegates – Ganief Fataar, Hajera Kajee & Audrey MacDonald) carried themselves with pride amongst all the internationally acclaimed athletes, coaches and delegates present.

The two international umpires, Genevieve Lentz & Nigel Adams added to the glittering affair.

Coaches Gustafson and Luckay had to ensure that each point was maximised and won with confidence.

The good news for the men’s team was that the ended the competition in 62nd position which is a climb of seven positions from their 2009 ranking. This achievement was surpassed by the women’s team when they advanced from 88 to 69th position.

The display and commitment of all our athletes at the 2010 World Championships is a huge achievement that has improved South Africa’s world ranking.

The men’s team placed sixth at the same championships.

Then at the recent Confederation of Zone VI Championships in Benoni, we snapped up all the gold medals on offer.
South Africa took on six other African countries: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

The men’s team has made some rather promising success as they improved their position at the Commonwealth Championships from 13th at last years championships held in India to a well fought for seventh place.

In the group stages they had to put up a brave fight against Malaysia to qualify for the top eight play-offs, winning them for a third time in a row. This giving South Africa a  psychological advantage in the competition.

South Africa managed to beat Australia for the first time in the History of the Commonwealth Championships allowing the boys to clinch the seventh place.

The women’s team has made some progress by beating the home team, Scotland and showing good promise for the future as they are quite a young team of ages ranging between 15 to 18.