At the Africa Hopes Week & Challenge, 21 players, 11 girls and 10 boys, from 7 African Member Associations alongside 5 female coaches and 6 male coaches participated in the gender-balanced activity, hosted by the Botswana Table Tennis Association from 9-14 July. Led by Head Coach Eva Jeler, the Africa Hopes also offered an opportunity to participants of the “My Gender. My Strength.” Project to gather practical experience by assisting the Head Coach throughout the activity. Besides the practical work in the hall, the activity also featured educational components for the coaches and players. At one if these, Professor Robert Zorec from the University of Ljubljana gave a lecture on learning and brain function, with a focus on the neural mechanisms of learning and memory areas.

At this African stop of the Hopes journey to the World Hopes in Paraguay, 2 spots per gender were up for grabs in Gaborone. Uganda showed commitment and resilience throughout training and competition, ending up with 3 out 4 qualifiers. In the girls challenge tournament, Patience Anyango (UGA) beat her compatriot Patra Nasirumbi, therefore sending them both on their way to Asuncion. In the boys challenge, Israel Aklie from Ghana clinched a win from With The Future In Mind scholarship holder Joseph Sebatindira (UGA).

“The Afric Hopes Week & Challenge was a real success. As it is part of the ITTF development program for players under 12 and their coaches, the aim of the training was to tailor each session in a way that would serve each individual player and enable them to progress according to their needs and abilities. In this, we succeeded. This was enabled by very engaged coaches from Botswana and the participating countries. The practice was organised applying different methods; multiballs training especially, which is very effective, was applied to every session. The organisation by Botswana TT Association was excellent. All in all, thanks to that, we had a very successful training camp, offering African players from all over of the continent and the very talented Botswana players an opportunity to learn a lot.” – Head Coach Eva Jeler.

Once the Hopes activity had concluded, the stage was set for the African Youth Championships. Participating Hopes players performed exceptionally well, with Joanita Borteye of Ghana reaching the semifinal of the U15 girls singles as well as outstandingly reaching the final of the Mixed doubles with partner and World Hopes qualifier Israel Aklie, World Hopes qualifiers Patra Nasirumbi and Patience Anyango reaching the semifinal of the U15 girls doubles, and Joseph Sebatindira reaching both the U15 boys singles semifinal as well as the U15 boys doubles with partner Samuel Ankunda.

Besides the current Hopes players, ITTF-supported athletes performed well throughout the championships. A noteworthy final was the U19 boys singles, where two With The Future in Mind scholarship holders aimed for gold, with Tunisian Wassim Essid winning out over Ylane Batix from Cameroon. In the U15 girls singles, Continental Youth Grant holder Yara Elbadawy (EGY) won over her compatriot, former Hopes player Farida Thabet.

With the first continental Hopes activity concluded and the African players setting the bar high for their contemporaries across the world, we only have 3 months to go to set the field for the world’s top talents to meet in Asuncion, Paraguay at the World Hopes Week.