New Delhi, January 18: A 15-day camp for junior paddlers began with 10 boys and 10 girls participating in the prestigious ATTU’s ‘Aim for Asian Stars’ at the Abhay Prashal Stadium here today. Concurrently, a coaches’ clinic also started with 15 coaches participating in it. The latter event concludes on January 24 while the former continues until February 1.

An experienced chief coach in Yin Wei, who has had the reputation of churning out several young paddlers that are the part and parcel of today’s Indian table tennis, will head both the programmes. He will be assisted by Rinku Acharya, a former national champion, and Nilesh Vaid, both from Madhya Pradesh.

The two events, funded by the International Table Tennis Federation, are aimed at providing quality training to young paddlers and updating knowledge and skills of the coaches. Incidentally, these were the first such events organized under the ITTF/ATTU banner during the pandemic, after ITTF suspended all competitive and other routine programmes ever since COVID-19 spread its fangs across the globe.

TTFI, which is at the forefront of conducting the two events with support from the Madhya Pradesh Table Tennis Association, will be following the protocols of the Government of India, besides adhering to the SOPs of the Sports Ministry and the Sports Authority of India.  TTFI has also organized for the Antigen tests to be done at the venue, keeping in mind the safety of the participants.