The Barbados national junior table tennis team returned home recently from the Caribbean Region Table Tennis Federation Table Tennis Junior Tournament in St. Kitts, after being soundly beaten by their regional counterparts.

Coach of the team David Harris was disappointed with the results of the team, but noted that the players showed fighting spirit in the midst of very stiff opposition. Harris noted that many of the Caribbean countries have copied developmental programmes from Barbados and have implemented them in their countries and they have seen a dramatic improvement in their junior players.

According to Harris, while the other countries have been copying the Barbados formula with great success, Barbados on the other hand has been tinkering with the programme and has seen diminished results and lower skill levels among the junior players in the process.

“Trinidad, [Guyana and Puerto Rico have] a strong core of young players. What is hurting me is that Barbados was at the epicentre of that development. In the 90’s and early 2000’s we had something called the Goddards Enterprises tournament, and we dominated and we had a large cadre of junior players who were doing really well,” he noted.

“In 2001 when the senior championships was held in Barbados, some of the visiting countries believed that Barbados had a sporting institute in table tennis because the team was that good. The other countries copied that youth tournament while we have done away with it and are now more or less experimenting,” said Harris.

The coach also noted that Barbados needs to build on the talent they currently have and build on it, while still searching for more. Harris also believes their needs to be tournaments at both primary and secondary level to not only raise the skill level among the juniors but as a means of finding new talent.