ITTC ANNUAL REPORT

Dear fellow ITTC colleagues.

Not many people outside Table Tennis know what the abbreviation ITTC mean or why we are using this name. It stands for the International Table Tennis Committee for the disabled. The sport has used ITTC since 1979 when we were one of the first sports to include all physical disabilities in our rules and decisions. The ITTC rules has governed the sport since that time I was elected by the body of Nations in Atlanta as the Pan Americas representative. Our bylaws states that at least one Executive member has to be from that region and I live in the USA. Then the elected members choose the individual positions of Secretary, Treasurer and Chairperson. My first job after I was elected by the Executive committee as Chairman was to implement an organizational structure that was conducive to growth and further development of the sport. I believe in count ability and jurisdiction of control as a tool for productive work, and a good utilization of human resources. Therefore I listed all the areas that was necessary at the time to be able to further enhance disabled Table Tennis in the world. I then gave every Executive member, after their consent, an area of responsibility. They are then titled officers in that area. The committee can also decide to appoint persons in areas of special need.

1. Chairman Mr. Christian Lillieroos. I view as my main responsibility to report to the IPC sport council and IPC Executive board as the person that represents disabled table tennis. In that responsibility includes accountability of all aspects of the sport, so I have to monitor all the Executive officers activities. I will also be one of the two Technical delegates in the World title event, the World Championships and the Paralympics.
   As the Pan American representative I represent the countries of Latin America, which is Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English speaking, and the North American English/French speaking side. In all our communications English and Spanish are both necessary languages. The region has a clear shortage of standing players. Our biggest challenge is the lack of Sport oriented National bodies instead of disability oriented organizations. Therefore we have many highly qualified standing players that can not play because many countries do not have a Paralympic National body to represent. We have a high degree of developed Mentally disabled athletes organized through the Special Olympic movement but they do not organize any Elite level competitions or are organized with INAS-FMH, and therefore can not compete in IPC events.
   The Pan Am region had two table tennis tournaments in 1998 and one in 1997. Both years the integrated US-open was held. 1997 it was an organizational success but without many participants (around 50 athletes). In 1998 it was many participants (around 100) but a terrible organization, mainly due a level of inexperience dealing with the high number of athletes, therefore not sufficient preparation. The organizational committee was therefore given a sanction to be forced to use a Technical delegate appointed by ITTC, to monitor the necessary organizational preparations no matter what level of sanction ITTC approves.
   The other tournament organized in 1998 was the International disabled Team Tournament in Forth Worth, Texas. The tournament was from a organizational view very successful but again as in US-Open 1997 it was a lack of participation (35 athletes).
   The spirit and possibilities in the region is higher than anywhere else in the world, but it has to come from a more commercialized approach, to gain revenue and exposure.
   My recommendations for the future:
   • A regional representative should be elected by that regions country members and not by all countries.
   • A regional representative should not be able to be Chair the committee. My experience has shown me that I have to look at the International side before I look at the Pan Am side. I am aware of the Pan Am situations but can not always defend them as well as I want . It is a small situation of conflict of interest that I would recommend to avoid.

2. The Treasurer, Mr. Silas Chiang from Hong Kong, handles the economical responsibilities together with the small amounts of sponsorships that we can find from other sources. He is also the elected FESPIC (Far East South Pacific) representative. According to our bylaws one person on the committee has to be elected from the FESPIC region.

3. We have a special ISMWSF representative Oeivind Eriksen, from Norway he is also responsible for all our communication with our able-bodied counterparts ITTF, the International Table Tennis Federation, members from 180 countries the second largest participation sport in the world. The only group that is not included is the blind organization because the nature of the sport makes it very difficult to execute for visually impaired. Now in Paris is the first time that Mentally disabled athletes have full medal status in an IPC sanctioned Table Tennis tournament. In Sydney 2000 we will also have mentally disabled events included for the first time. In the European Championships Mentally disabled events has been included since 1995 as exhibition events.
   We united ourselves as a sport organization early. We in ITTC recognizes that the International disability organizations is much better than ITTC when it comes to recruitment of new disabled athletes. A new athlete needs to try many sports and need to be catered more for their disability in itself than for a special sport. They need to see that others with the same disability can do sports also. We have given the sanction rights to all Junior World Table Tennis championships for every disability group. We will give as much technical support to them as we can.

   When it comes to the elite disabled table tennis organization ITTC/IPC is best suited for that governing responsibility.

4. Selection officer Massimo Bernardoni from Italy. In the World Championships in France this year in October we had 534 athletes in the first entry. The organizing committee could handle only 300. We use three criteria for selection:
   1. 30% for regional belonging. We have a regional representative from all our ITTC approved regions.
      • Pan Am: Christian Lillieroos, USA
      • FESPIC/Middle East: Silas Chiang, Hong Kong
      • Europe: Jiri Danek, Czech republic, (Executive committee appointed role)
      • Africa vacant
   2. 65% World ranking
   3. 5% Wild card, that ITTC selects based on that any mathematical solution will have flaws in it.

5. In all the levels of sanctioning of tournaments except the lowest a Technical delegate has to be appointed by ITTC, the person in charge of that is the Tournament officer Jiri Danek from Czech republic.

6. The selection is based on what class an athlete belongs to. We have 11 functional disability classes 5 for wheelchair athletes, 5 for standing and 1 for mentally disabled. This makes it a total of 22 classes including men and women. The person in charge of this system, and the training of the classifiers in the world, is our medical officer Dr. Aart Kruimer from Netherlands. He was also the person mainly responsible for creating this system in 1990.

The person who has to make sure that all this reaches the countries is our

6. Secretary, Marianne Baertelsen from Denmark in charge of the challenging task communication. Our web site which is monitored by Dr Wu and our web master Gaël Marziou has helped a lot in this task for the countries that have access to the internet.

1. The Rules/Regulations Officer, Mr. Aksel Beckmann from Denmark is in charge of all officials, including selections of these to sanctioned tournaments, and the creation and continuos update of the ITTC Rules and Regulations Handbook.

2. Ranking officer Dr. Wu, Chi-Shih from Taiwan who publishes the ranking on our web site (http://www.ipttc.org/) every three months. The ranking list is calculated by using every match won, which gives points based on what class the athlete is in, what type of event (singles, team, or doubles) they are competing in, and what sanction level the tournament has.

3. Ranking Secretary Margit Beckmann from Denmark who sanctions the tournaments in 6 different levels. The top 3 is sanctioned from the IPC technical committee with capitation fees etc., the Paralympic, World, and Regional championships. The other three levels of International Championships are regulated by standard of organization and carries a different value for the calculation of ranking points, the higher sanctioning level the more ranking points an athlete will gain in case of a victory.

4. Administrative Assistant Shelby Lookabaugh is in charge to assist the Chairman and other Executive members in the administrative duties to fulfill the responsibility towards the country members. This is a position that has been implemented this year due to the increased level of communication needs with the countries due to heavily increased activity in especially tournament which is very positive, but more time consuming for the volunteer body of people that run ITTC.

That constitutes the job priorities that the International Table Tennis Committee (ITTC), also the IPC Table Tennis Assembly Executive Committee (SAEC) has to accomplish to its country members right now according to the interpretation by the Chairman Christian Lillieroos, USA.

Christian Lillieroos ITTC Chairman