Six TTI Para players travelled to Sheffield along with coach Tara Fusco – Sean Geoghegan, Aaron Mellows, Jude Sheldon, Kevin O’Callaghan, Patrick McCormick and Aoife Kelly. Only eighteen players in total took part due to the late confirmation of the event and it’s proximity to the British National Championships in two weeks time. Notwithstanding the low entry, the experience proved to be very useful for our players in allowing them to compete against both British pathway and development players.
On Saturday 19th, the morning was given over to an open training session delivered by Shaun Marples, coach and manager for Pathway and Development Programmes for British Para. We found this session to be very helpful to us in that we were able to assess the relative playing standards of British Para players to ours before competition commenced at 1.00 pm.
The Saturday afternoon competition consisted of a first round of three groups – one wheelchair and two standing – going into a second round. In the second round the three group winners played off for 1st/2nd/3rd placings, the three second placed players played off for 4th/5th/6th, the three third placed players played for 7 – 9 th places with the fourth and fifth players playing for the remainder placings. The Irish results were that Aaron was the highest placed Irish player in 4th place followed by Sean in 5th and Kevin in 6th. Jude came 8th with Patrick placed 13th and Aoife 14th.
Sunday 20th saw a repeat of the one wheelchair and two standing groups format, but, with different formats and group selections for the morning and afternoon sessions. Unlike Saturday, on Sunday morning the top two in the wheelchair group played off in a final while the top four in the two standing groups played in cross over semi finals. Our best placed player in the morning was Sean as a losing semi finalist in the standing groups. There was also an additional Class 11 group played which only involved our three players – Aaron, Patrick and Aoife – with Aaron coming out on top. On Sunday afternoon the wheelchair group played a round robin format where Kevin played very well to finish second, our best placed player over the weekend. Sean achieved a second losing semi finalist placing in the standing group, and so, was our most consistent player in the competition.
Thanks to Tara for her coaching over the weekend, to Simon for transportation to/from the venue and to the parents who supported the players throughout. Thanks also to Shaun and Sam from British Para for setting up and running the competition.
It would be remiss on the part of the author of this report not to mention the impact of Storm Ashley on the Squad returning home, some of whom only got there one to two days after leaving Sheffield. It’s great to bear witness to such commitment to Para table tennis.
