British Para Table-Tennis athletes put a strong show at European Championships held in Sheffield
- Adhitya Vijaykumar
- Sep 17, 2023
- 4 min read
The 2023 European para table-tennis took place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield from 4-9 September 2023 and saw 267 ping-pong players in action who featured across 11 singles and doubles competitions. The stakes were extremely high for this championship as the event carried 22 qualification berths for next year’s Paris Paralympics. In addition to that, players were also eligible to boost their world rankings which further enabled them to qualify for Paris. The event had a lot of importance for the hosts as this was just the third event after last year’s 2022 Commonwealth Games and London 2012 Paralympics which gave fans access to watch Paralympic sport live.
The tournament hosted 11 classes which included (C1-C5) for wheelchair athletes, five for standing athletes (C6-C10), and one for the athletes with an intellectual impairment who met the required criteria for para table tennis. A strong British contingent was announced for these games which were led by world champion Will Bayley, four-time European champion Rob Davies, and Commonwealth champions Jack Hunter-Spivey and Joshua Stacey. The other athletes who made up the 18-member British contingent were world doubles champions Billy Shilton and Paul Karabardak Fliss Pickard and Grace Williams, World medallists Aaron McKibbin, Martin Perry, Ross Wilson, and Tom Matthews, and four members of the BPTT Pathway squad who made their major championship debuts including 13-year-old Bly Twomey and Chris Ryan, who captained the GB wheelchair rugby team to Paralympic gold in Tokyo.
The day one of the event saw Paul Karabardak (men’s class 6), Will Bayley (men’s class 7) and Aaron McKibbin (men’s class 8) became the first British players to reach the knockout stages of their respective singles events, but the headline maker was the 13-year-old debutant Bly Twomey who defeated Swedish World number six Smilla Sand in her first major championship match. The other winners on Day 1 included Rob Davies (men’s class 1) who started with an aim to win his fifth consecutive European singles title and won his first game against Alexandru Imbuzan from Romania. Fellow Welshman Tom Matthews (men’s class 1) also started with a 3-0 win against Gregorios Chryssikos from Greece.
In men’s class 2 Chris Ryan led the first set against Italy’s Federico Crosara before the Italian made a comeback to take the match 3-1. In men’s class 3 Romain Simon secured his first major championship win by beating Benjamin Marotte from Belgium 3-0. The other results in men’s saw Ross Wilson who emerged victorious against World number 25 David Pulpan from Czechia and then lost a very tight match to Juan Perez Gonzalez of Spain. In women’s class 4-5 Britain’s Megan Shackleton had a difficult first game as she went down World number four Sandra Mikolaschek from Germany 3-0. Fliss Pickard (women’s class 6) gained her revenge for a 3-2 loss in the Czech Para Open to Emelie Endre with a 3-0 win against the World number nine from Sweden and was then beaten 3-1 by the World number eight Gabriela Constantin from Romania. Grace Williams too was beaten by Juliane Wolf as the world number 7 and former European team gold medallist from Germany defeated her British rival 3-0.
The start of day two also saw a lot of action as British players battled hard and by the end of day two 11 players made their way to the knockout stages of their respective events with three singles medals assured. In men’s class 1 four-time champion Rob Davies and fellow Welshman Tom Matthews both went through to the semi-finals while 13-year-old Bly Twomey was through to the semi-finals of women’s class 7 and was assured of at least a bronze medal in her first major championship.
The day three of the event was a successful one for the British athletes as they secured eight singles medals as Rob Davies (men’s class 1), Jack Hunter-Spivey (men’s class 5), Martin Perry (men’s class 6), Will Bayley (men’s class 7) and Grace Williams (women’s class 8) all went through to the semi-finals while Tom Matthews (men’s class 1), Fliss Pickard (women’s class 6) and 13-year-old Bly Twomey (women’s class 7) secured bronze in their respective events.
Will Bayley stole the headlines on day four as he claimed the men’s class 7 European title and, in the process, booked his ticket for Paris next year. However, Rob Davies just fell short of securing his fifth consecutive men’s class 1 title and there were also silver medals for Grace Williams (women’s class 8) and Jack Hunter-Spivey (men’s class 5) while Martin Perry took bronze in men’s class 6.
Day five of the world championships saw the British team all but assured of at least three medals as World champions Fliss Pickard and Grace Williams (women’s class 14), Aaron McKibbin and Martin Perry (men’s class 14), and Ross Wilson and Joshua Stacey (men’s class 18 were all through to the semi-finals while Jack Hunter-Spivey and Megan Shackleton (mixed class 10) were also in contention to take a medal if they won their final round-robin match.
Following the grand set-up for the medals by British ping-pong players on day five, day six proved to be another successful day as Team GB took four medals in doubles events to bring their total medal tally to 12. Jack Hunter-Spivey and Megan Shackleton secured silver in mixed class 10 while Fliss Pickard and Grace Williams (women’s class 14), Aaron McKibbin and Martin Perry (men’s class 14), and Ross Wilson and Joshua Stacey (men’s class 18) all took bronze.
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