George Konstantinopoulos, Gerasimos Hatzilygeroudis and Ioanna Gerasimatou will be in Melbourne from July 21 to August 17 to help prepare the country’s national Paralympic team for the Paris Games.
Australia has traditionally had strong athletes with disabilities and has won medals at top events. From 2022, the head coach of the country’s Para Table Tennis is a Greek, George Logothetis.
The former international and youth champion of Greece, who has been following a coaching career in Australia for years, had contacted the national men’s federal coach, Kostas Vatsaklis, since last September, in order to assist in the preparation of the Paralympic team of the “country of kangaroos” ».
Logothetis, in fact, asked for athletes with some specific elements in the game, an indication of the serious planning that the Australians wanted to do early on for the training of people with disabilities. For example, they asked for a male or female athlete with a combination rubber (“tooth”), but also left-handed.
Thus, the left-handed Konstantinopoulos and Gerasimatos will go to the Melbourne Sports Center, with the latter having a “tooth” on both sides of the racket, but also the right-handed attacking player Hatzilygeroudis, who was also considered very useful with his style of play. .
Our internationals, in addition to valuable experience, can also benefit coaching as Australians from the upright classes are at a very good level of competition.
In general, the organizers make such an organization for the Para TT that they are already planning for the Los Angeles Paralympic Games. In December 2018, again as guests of Giorgos Logothetis in Townsville, Vatsaklis and Yiannis Sgouropoulos had taken part in a few-day training camp of the local club after the World Youth Championship.
It should be noted, finally, that the “hosts” will cover all the expenses of the Greeks and will also give them some money for their approximately one month stay in Melbourne.
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