An article by Joachim Voigt about Brasilian Championships (2008-12-22)
A big venue, a lot of players: wheelchairs, disabled players, veterans, juniors, cadets, boys and girls, also stars like Hugo Hoyama and – of course – very, very hot, thats the Championata Brasileiro. A big event that could be a example for the whole world. The big family is all together. You find all kind of players and all behave even like a big family. All players do their best and all are very motivated. You see a lot of great matches on the about 25 tables. The warming-up-hall is always totally busy and also the tribune is used by players and spectators. The mood in the hall is amazing. The regions, clubs and groups support their players, but it´s always a very friendly and fair way of acting to each other. One sport – one family, Brasil shows what this means.
The big event runs for five days. The first events are the Paralympics classes and the tournament of teams playing for their region. After that there is a tournament for teams of the clubs. Then single events starts. First ranking, where the players play selected by age, cadets, juniors, adults, seniors and veterans and more classes are played. The last event is the rating. Depending on rating points players play in different rating classes from A to J, combined cadets with veterans and also disabled players. A totally integrated event.
Highlight of all events are the medal ceremonies. They are perfectly organized and really in a worthy atmosphere and so the totally satisfiing end of the tournaments. Events that must be a perfect motivation for all the players. Events that can compete with every good, big tournament in the world. Played on Gerflor with – of course – professional tables, referees for every table, players all with names on their shirt, everything works well. So if there is anything you could complain about it´s the temperature. It´s about 38 degrees but that´s typical for Brasil. One detail for all the disabled players that are planing to visit the Brasil open in 2009. The CBTM, the Brasil federation, used Dr.Wu´s software for the Championate Brasileiro and everything worked well. So everything is prepared for a great big ITTF Para TT tournament in 2009 in Rio de Janeiro. And - really incredible - the best news: the venue for the event in 2009 has air-conditioning. So, let´s go to Brasil!