Memorandum

To: National Paralympic Committees

CC: Kevin Simmonds, SPOC

From: Massimo Bernardoni, ITTC Selection Officer

Date: 26/01/00

Re: Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games Qualifications in Table Tennis

Please find enclosed the following very important material.

The International Table Tennis Committee for the disabled (ITTC) January 2000 ranking list has 1447 active athletes listed from 83 countries. In the four 1999 regional selection Championships 656 athletes participated. In Sydney Table Tennis has only 272 allocated slots. Table Tennis offers events for Men and Women and for wheelchair, Cerebral palsy, amputees, les autres, and Intellectually disabled athletes. Table Tennis has one of the most competitive selection systems of all sports, and only athletes that competed and demonstrated true international elite standard was selected by ITTC.

For the NPC´s that did not receive any selected athletes but has eligible athletes for Wild card applications I encourage each NPC to apply for a Wild card and give your eligible athletes the chance to compete. Remember to include special reasons that we might not know about, that could be economical, political, geograhic or other reasons that gave the athletes a difficult time to fairly qualify despite his/her high level.

The Wild card applications have to be received by February 15th, 2000, and should be addressed to:

International Paralympic Committee

Table Tennis

Adenaueralle 212-214

53113 Bonn

Germany

Tel: +49(228)209-7200 Fax: +49(228)209-7209 E-mail: info@paralympic.org

THE SELECTION PROCESS AND HOW TO ENTER

Each country can only enter a maximum of three athletes in each singles event or one team in a team event. Only a National Paralympic Committee (NPC) in good standing with the International Paralympic Committee can enter athletes to the Paralympic Games.

    1. The Regional Selection: (see selection list) Your country has unfortunatley not a regional selected athletes, but we encourage you to apply for wild cards, see below. If an athlete is listed as "1st EUROPE" then this is a personal selection that can not be changed for other athletes by the NPC. If the NPC decides to not enter a regional selected athlete then that slot goes to the next highest finisher in that event in the respective regional qualifying Championships.
    2. The Ranking Selection: (see selection list) Your country has unfortunatley not a ranking selected athletes, but we encourage you to apply for wild cards, see below. If an athlete is listed as "Ranking" or "reserve" then this is a selection that can be changed for other athletes by the NPC. Athletes can only be changed for other national athletes in the respective events, that fullfills the minimum selection critieria (See below). Only 30% rounded upwards of the total number of selected athletes by ranking can be exchanged by the NPC.
    3. The Wild Card application: A NPC can apply for a wild card (WC) Team Target Player (TTP) on the allocated form. No athlete can be selected for a WC unless the NPC applies for it on time. The MAXIMUM wild cards that a country can receive are for two athletes (Except the host country in this case AUS) but a country can apply for more. Each applicant has to fullfil the minimum selection critieria, which is according to the "Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games Qualification guide"; the invited Wild Card or Team Target Players must be included on the ITTC Ranking list at January 1 2000 and have an international classification card, (Available on the ITTC website (http://www.ipttc.org)

Please note: If no entry is made by a country in either A, B or C then that slots goes to an entered reserve.

I hope we have made the process as clear as possible, but please do not hesitate to contact me for any questions on how to fill in the selection forms. These documents will also be available on the ITTC website at: http://www.ipttc.org

The best way to communicate with me is by

E-mail: Massimo Bernardoni: maxitizi@tin.it

 

 

Massimo Bernardoni

ITTC Selection officer