For the international sporting world, and especially those sports that revolve around the spirit of the Olympic Games it has been a turbulent 12-months. First and foremost, we were not fully prepared when the IOC announced to postpone the Tokyo Olympic Games in March last year. The postponement threw everything into disarray – calendar planning, players training and preparations, and a big job to restructure the overall scheduling for a postponed Olympic Games. All of this was happening at the same time when all sports were trying to also deal with the battle that COVID-19 was also bringing on their own events and properties, with hundreds of suspended, postponed and/or cancelled events.

It would be easy for us to sit here, complain and blame somebody. In fact, these days as people have been in lockdown, unable to travel and more and more persons have become successful keyboard or smartphone warriors. The voices of not being satisfied have been louder than ever before. It’s actually quite normal in this uncertain period. It’s really frustrating when all of our lives have been turned upside down by what we hope is merely a once in a lifetime pandemic. Quarantining for events, new COVID-19 protocols, events in a bubble, longer times away from home, have all disrupted every facet of how we had normally lived our lives and organised our events. For that reason, the decision to postpone the Olympic Games was reasonable and we all understood the IOC and the Japanese governments tough decision.

As a growing International Federation with relatively bold plans to grow the sport that we love – Table Tennis – it’s not easy for everyone to see the complexities that the whole situation has led too. Here are some of them:

• World Table Tennis – they say timing is everything! For the years leading up to 2021, and prior to COVID-19, the ITTF were planning to make a relatively evolutionary change to our business model for delivering, managing and commercialising our events. With all the planning to start after the Olympic Games. We wanted to create events that solved many of the problems that our stakeholders complained about in the past in terms of our events business – low prize money, weak media penetration, event production standards not at the level to attract more high-level sponsors and these are just a few of the areas to be improved. It is quickly forgotten the even smaller matters and I can’t even remember how many times Vladimir Samsonov, former Chair of the Athletes Commission, previously told us that the conditions for the athletes were simply not good enough at the majority of ITTF events. My team and I even sat with Timo Boll and Jorg Rossköpf in Incheon at the 2018 World Tour Grand Finals and their basic message was that the ITTF events are simply not good enough and if they don’t improve, the top players will not participate.

To be able to solve the issues, it meant we needed a blank piece of paper and had to re-draw the whole business model for our events to ensure the financials could match the objectives and desires that we had for our sport: better events, higher prizemoney, better media product, etc. We were ready for all these changes to start in 2021. COVID-19 hit and the Olympics were postponed for one year, and now we find ourselves trying to deliver a new concept, just prior to a postponed Olympics and in a time when being able to make any international events is proving extremely complicated. It would be very easy to sit back, wait, and do nothing until the Olympics pass, but I don’t think this is in the best interest of the sport, even though the number of internal critics would likely be less. In my simple view of the world – we must embrace whatever opportunities present themselves during this difficult time – because in the most uncertain times that we have ever lived through, these options are so precious and we do not even know if the biggest events in 2021 will even take place. Doing nothing until after the Olympic Games would be a bigger shame for our sport.

• World Championships – It’s hard to believe it’s more than one year ago when a group of senior staff were in Busan for final preparations of the World Championships. The uncertainty that 2020 delivered was highlighted by this trip to Busan. On one day we were discussing the draw ceremony, the logistics of the event and then suddenly the next day we were discussing how to postpone the event until a few months later. This set the scene for the year that was to become 2020 – a year of suspensions, postponements, cancellations and the whole sporting world trying to manage during a year of restrictions, which were always changing and for international sports dealing with the various border closures between countries. We fought hard to keep the World Championships in Busan alive, but in the end the Korean authorities did not want to take the risk even one year later in February 2021. We therefore have to move our attention to 2021 and we are trying our absolute best to make the World Championships take place in Houston, USA; but should the conditions continue to change, we will remain open to any possibilities that allow for the World Championships to take place in 2021, in any shape or form possible.

• Financial Survival – It was a turmoil that most of us had never experienced and while trying to keep the positivity of everyone due to the massive financial impact COVID-19 brought, it was difficult. Our financial reality was significantly challenged, and we all needed to make sacrifices in order to simply survive 2020. Everyone sacrificed, expenses were reduced, but not only for the ITTF – players lost opportunities to earn some of the regular incomes, event organisers could not make their events, some manufacturers of table tennis equipment also saw decreases in sales. For the whole table tennis industry it has been a difficult period.

• Hope through #RESTART: Thanks to China and the CTTA President Mr. Liu Guoliang, our sport could start to see through the fog of COVID-19 and give us again some hope that even through a crisis our sport can prevail. The #RESTART series was exactly the positive energy boost we all needed after a year of great difficulty. It also gave us more confidence that 2021 could be a slightly better year and that we could make events with the experience of the four events that were hosted in China and Macao.

And here we are today, in Doha, Qatar. We should count ourselves lucky as a sport. Our first ever World Table Tennis events are taking place despite the ongoing restrictions and pandemic. Many sports are still trying to find their way back, but we are not only back, we have launched a new platform – World Table Tennis. Imagine launching something this evolutionary at this moment of time. Internally, as the Olympic Games still has the pride of place in the hearts of players, and of course due to the preparations of the table tennis world for this main stage, some question have been raised – questions like – why didn’t you wait until after the Olympic Games? Why to make so many changes prior to the Olympic Games? Why to make the players go through all these complexities prior to the Olympic Games?. They are all valid questions, and we cannot deny them, and fair enough – on the other hand we ask and try to remind our internal friends that:

• The Olympic Games being postponed is something that we never wished for, or expected. Starting a new platform was supposed to happen post Olympic Games and more than two years of planning had that timing perfect. We have somewhat adapted – but for those who understand how the sports market works – that market does not wait. The sports landscape is evolving all the time with new events, new products, new championships.
• As an international events promoter, we need to be prepared for all scenarios. We need to be prepared that major table tennis events in 2021 potentially may not happen, that’s the reality of the uncertain times that we live in. We therefore need to do everything we can to make events possible when the opportunity arises – like here in Doha and potentially in China soon.
• We understand change is never easy, even in the best of times, but these changes are not simply done without study, analysis, expert advice and consultation. More internal stakeholder engagement and communication can help to improve things, and we will work to solve this. On the other hand we also want the results of what we do to be the deciding factor – yes some internal debates happened at the first events in Doha – but for 99.9% of the people who only see the TV screens at their home, or watching streams on their phones, they are amazed at the new product that is being delivered. The prize money for this tier of event is the highest table tennis has ever seen, and there is only bigger and better things to come in that regard. Whilst some may not have a balcony or their favourite coffee, the hospitality and playing conditions are five star here in Doha.

Sport has been smashed by COVID-19. Planning has almost gone out the door. Those that can adapt to the new realities of life will be the ones who succeed. These are the organic rules of the environment – those who adapt best to the changes, are those that reap the rewards. This is everyone’s own responsibility and not the fault or the responsibility of others. It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior, it’s much harder to find the solutions and make the necessary work to ensure success. Now is the time for the real heroes of the sporting world and in our case, the table tennis world, to show positivity and team spirit and prove that even during these difficult times they can perform and show results.

Who are those persons? It will be easy to see – because they actually made positive results, they adapted to the change better than the rest and did not waste time to only focus on the difficult and negative things. They will be the future stars of our sport!

For All. For Life.

Steve Dainton