The European Table Tennis Association (ETTU) introduced in 2022 a new big event in its calendar, decided to hold, according to the standards of the European Youth Championship, an event for children up to 13 years old and Greece will have the pleasure and honor to be present. From June 16 to 19, the Europe Under 13 Challenge will take place in Podgorica, Montenegro, and our country will line up with a full team and the arguably the best athletes of this age category. The national delegation will be composed of Costas Fakaros, Giannis-Panagiotis Kioseloglou, Vasiliki Boula and Stella Mavromataki. Each country can line up up to two boys and two girls and the E.F.O.E.P.A. said the children, who hold the first two places in the Greek rating table in May in the U13 category. In addition, he contributes financially to the realization of the trip, as he calculates the organization as a precursor of a European championship in this important, for the development of a talent, age category.
Fakaros, who was born in Athens in 2009, competed this year in AK Zografou. Kioseloglou, born in 2010, is an athlete of Poseidon Loutraki and comes from his academy. 13-year-old Boula from Chios competes in the local Orion and also the 13-year-old islander, Mavromataki, is an athlete of OA Chania.
Two club coaches will also be in Podgorica. Christos Tsarsitalidis of Poseidon Loutraki for the girls and Roula Lambrinidis of Orion Chios for the pangolins.
The Europe Under 13 Challenge includes team and individual competitions. It is going to bring together athletes from 22 countries and, given that it is being held for the first time, the number can be considered satisfactory. There are 21 teams in the U13 Mixed Teams Entry List, while 43 girls and 42 pangolins are going to take part in the singles.
One innovation is that the team will be made with mixed national teams. They will consist of two boys and two girls, at the beginning of each group meeting there will be a double, while after the groups the first two teams will continue in the A category and the next two (or the next one if one group is of the 3rd) in the B (as happens for years and in the European Youth Championship). There are “consolation” games in both team and simple, so a sufficient number of games is provided for all children and this is very important for the Greek side. All four of our freestyle athletes make their debut in such a mission, Kioseloglou and Boula have participated in an international junior tournament (in Belgrade and Hungary respectively), while Fakaros and Mavromataki will experience their first experience of racing. abroad.
Fakaros and Boula are this year’s Greek runners-up in the doubles mixed for boys and girls. Last summer in Hungary they were selected together by the ETTU for the final training camp of the Eurotalents and participated in it this October in Slovenia. Kioseloglou, the current Greek champion in all the boys’ competitions, had also participated in the ETTU qualifying camp in Hungary and in October 2021 won the silver medal at the Youth Contender of Serbia in the Under 11 category. Mavromataki celebrated the title a month ago in the girls team, in addition he reached the final of the singles and this was the ideal continuation in the two consecutive finals, which he had given to the singles pangolin in 2020 and 2021.
In the course, we will refer in more detail to the manner of conducting and other elements of the event, which was requested and undertaken by Montenegro. At the moment it should be stressed that ETTU gives a lot of weight to the Europe Under 13 Challenge and wants to establish it, possibly turning it into a European championship. In a post by ETTU last month, the director of the Union’s development program, Neven Cegnar, who was in charge of both last year’s training camps for boys and girls, who had a Greek presence, made statements about the event. “If this new event is successful, the ETTU will look to maintain it, perhaps as the U13 European Championship,” the acclaimed Croatian coach said. It is clear, then, that with the E.F.O.E.P.A. has recently harmonized its age categories with international standards, this championship may in the future become a new good motivation for children!
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