by Mariann Domonkos
Table tennis in Germany is a well-established sport, so much so that the country appears to be a table tennis paradise (Champion, February 1982). However, many admirers of their impressive set-up are surprised to learn that the German system fails to produce top-calibre international table tennis players. Instead, their players reach and maintain a ‘low world-class’ level at best.
German table tennis boasts many impressive statistics: membership currently stands at 700,000 registered players (250,000 of them female), all of whom are active in regular league play; estimates suggest that there are another six million unregistered ‘hobby’ players; at last count (1981), over 9,000 clubs were affiliated with the German Table Tennis Association; a high-quality, bi-monthly table tennis magazine covers the latest domestic and international news of the sport.
Having spent the past season in Germany, I have developed a few insights and theories as to some of the causes of this inability to reach the top. There may be lessons here for Canadian sports.
The price of playing to WIN
The root of the problem is the Bundesliga.
The Bundesliga, the first division of the German table tennis league network, has 10 teams, each playing a total of 18 matches during a seven-month season, or roughly three matches a month. Each match is very demanding since there is a lot of pressure to perform, or, to put it simply, to WIN.
That small word, WIN, is the key to everything. Sure, it is great to win, but the constant thirst for it leaves no time for anything else. In a sport as technical as table tennis, improvement is slow and time-consuming. It has to be guided by a well- planned training program which might even sacrifice winning for its duration. In other words, the athlete has to dedicate himself to the training program with the confidence that the changes he is undergoing will improve his performance once the changes are perfected, even though they may prove detrimental to his results during the early stages of the program.
Having said this, I think that the conflict between the Bundesliga and the quest for continuous improvement becomes quite clear. The players who play season after season in the Bundesliga simply don’t have time to seriously commit themselves to a training program which might hinder their performance over the short-term. In the Bundesliga, the present is important, not the future.
But still the Bundesliga does have benefits as it nurtures countless hundreds of players to a respectable level, giving depth to German table tennis. As a consequence, the range in calibre is quite small, consistently providing competition of a high level. There are relatively few easy matches.
Strike the balance
The Bundesliga can be invaluable if used as a tool in the effort to improve rather than as a battleground where every match must be won, year after year. It has to be used as an aid in the maturation of a player, to give a player experience, as a scale to judge one’s progress. But a player with ambitions of being top worldclass should not allow himself to be used by the Bundesliga. The demand to win constantly creates a dead-end.
I like to think that I used the Bundesliga.
Although my training suffered during the seven months I spent in Germany, I have gained a lot in terms of experience in match play. This was what I needed at this point in my career; I could afford to sacrifice a season of training. I had followed a training program at the National Training Centre for Table Tennis in Ottawa prior to playing in Germany, during which time I introduced a number of new aspects to my game as well as improving on existing techniques. I used the Bundesliga to work them fully into my game, to become comfortable with them, not only in practice, but also under stressful competition.
Now that I have achieved these goals, it’s back to the drawing board, back to the National Centre to work on further improving my game. After a season away from Canada and my training, I have renewed confidence to commit myself yet again to a long-term training program. This time I’m aiming for the 1983 World Championships and the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas where table tennis will be an official sport for the first time.
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