Table Tennis Camp with former German National Coach Martin Adomeit

Foundation of Goodness (FoG), Seenigama had a treat last month in the figure of former German National Table Tennis (TT) Coach Martin Adomeit. Martin has served as both the German Junior and Senior National Table Tennis Coach.  He has also won much acclaim as the TT coach of Luxembourg, Belgium and for a short spell Nigeria.

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Chief coordinator for the National Olympic Committee and Former President of the Table Tennis Association of Sri Lanka, Chandana Perera said, “In my 40 years’ experience in Table Tennis, Mr. Martin Adomeit is the best coach who has come to Sri Lanka to educate coaches as well as players.”

Martin’s visit was facilitated through the Sri Lanka National Olympic Committee. He worked with coaches and TT players from across the country via a series of intensive workshops spread across Colombo, Kandy and the South. FoG was lucky to have him for a full day of training where our young TT champs trained hard from morning till late in the evening.

Our FoG Table Tennis Coach Chaminda Roshan assisted Martin with the TT camp. Ever since the 2004 Tsunami that devastated the region, Table Tennis has been one of the many sports that FoG has been developing in the area, in the hope of using sports as a vehicle to move out of poverty.

The German coach commended the standard of the junior players, saying that they were much better than players from many countries including Germany. He pointed out that the drop in quality is seen when players hit 17 or 18 years of age. Post school, players have no place to cultivate their passion, as Sri Lanka does not have many clubs or companies that they can play with. Martin also pointed out that it was very encouraging to see the number of female players that are interested in the sport, with the standard of the girls overriding that of the boys.

Martin also shared some invaluable pragmatic advice on how to train and become better, in an environment of limited resources, while introducing new techniques and teaching valuable skills to our players.

FoG would like to thank the National Olympic Committee for making this visit possible and giving our budding Table Tennis champs the opportunity to learn from one of the greats.

21st December 2018