by Simon Daish

The decision to bring an end to his table tennis career comes following a long deliberation over the situation from Elia Schmid, who stated that despite the difficulty behind his choice to leave the national team, education is the number one priority for him at this time:

“My education, and above all a direct education, is now the most important to me, even if it hurts me very much” – Elia Schmid.

Born in 1996, Elia Schmid impressed the Swiss table tennis setup at an early age and in March 2014 Schmid began to really establish himself as a standout player on the country’s Table Tennis scene, winning the 2014 Swiss Championship title. Later in the same year Schmid went on to qualify for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.

Schmid was also known to make use of the ‘Seemiller Backhand’ technique from time-to-time, a hit which is named after the USA’s Danny Seemiller who popularised playing a backhand shot on the same side of the racket as he used for the forehand.

More recently Schmid competed at the Liebherr 2016 European Championships in Budapest, Hungary where he reached the Men’s Singles Round of 64 before exiting to former European champion Vladimir Samsonov. While the 20-year-old Swiss player won’t be as involved on the world circuit as he has been in the past, Schmid insists that he won’t be putting his table tennis bat down for good anytime in the near future:

“I will continue my journey in table tennis at national level at my club, Rio-Star Muttenz. Table tennis gave me an enormous deal, it was a life school. It was a huge honour to represent Switzerland at the Youth Olympics, as well as the many European Championship games and World Cup games” – Elia Schmid.