by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

Organised under the auspices of the ITTF Development Programme; commencing on Wednesday 14th December and concluding one week later on Wednesday 21st December, Lima welcomed 30 students, all with the goal of introducing Para Table Tennis into their training sessions.

Under the guidance of Argentina’s Alejandra Gabaglio, the three day training camp followed the five day course; notably 13 members from the course fulfilled the role of assistant coaches as they put theory into practice.

“The activity was extremely enriching for all, in each session of training, every coach was assigned to a different player, the coach had to plan his training and at the same time execute it. In that way the coaches had the opportunity to experience the different possibilities of teaching table tennis according to the functionality of each player, while the players benefited from always having, in each training session, personal trainers focused only on them”, Alejandra Gabaglio

A detailed itinerary, it was one from which all benefited and whilst ITTF/PTT Level One Courses have been staged in Peru in recent times, notably under the guidance of Ecuador’s Rafael Armendariz, the initiative led by Alejandra Gabaglio was the first in the South American country where the Para Table Tennis was the prime element.

In the words of Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher from ancient times, “a journey of thousand miles must begin with a single step”.

Now, in Peru there may be some distance to go but the journey has begun.