LATEST NEWS;

National Ranking trials took take place on the 14-15th May at Kshatriya Hall, Lautoka; the top 30 men & top 20 Women (see current Fiji ranking list on this page) were invited to attend.; Telephone LTTA on; 628 2010 or enter your details on the Contact Us page if you wish to obtain detailed results of the trial.                                                                Lautoka Development News    (July 12-2009);

Updated Pacific Table Tennis Ratings sees Lautoka near the top of the Development ladder holding #5 spot behind Tahiti, New Caledonia and the Cook Islands but ahead of Vanuatu, Kiribati, Samoa and the Solomons!!!!

13yr old Ronak Jamnadas of Lautoka was last year crowned Fiji under 15 Champion and runner-up to 18yr old Peter Antonio in the u-18 event. Young Ronak also won the under 15 title at the 2008 Fiji Games.

2009 now sees Ronak turn 14 and also reach the top of the Fiji u-18 boys category, Whilst Peter (now 19!) has to compete at Senior Open International level or the under 21 category.

Peter Antionio (Rotuma) who has already represented Fiji at the Commonwealth Games, SPG and Oceania Championships recently won the Fiji Open Senior tournament and is expected to lead a young development squad to the upcoming Mini Pacific Games in the Cook Islands. Peter, now 19yrs old, was unbeaten in a National Team training camp in Lautoka from 11-15th May.

Coach Steve Reilly says "Ronak is in his final year of the u-15 category and has narrowly missed out for selection to the World Cadet Challenge finals after loosing to another upcoming star from the Cook Islands. It is my plan to build an even younger team toward the challenge of representing Fiji at future Youth Olympics, where the Table Tennis qualification is restricted to Cadets (15 years old and under) but the first challenge is to build up local primary school competition and hold District & National schools championships"                                     "By the time our young athletes reach High School (13-14yrs) there is so much pressure on them for Academic studies that it is impossible to dedicate sufficient time to improve significantly in their chosen sport; hence our efforts to identify "elite talent" at the earliest possible stage in Primary Schools!" Young Ronak, for example, only managed to complete 36 hours of supervised training over the past 12 months since the 2008 Fiji Games, whereas we aware that his much younger counterparts throughout Oceania  have managed to achieve a minimum of 200 hours and up to 700 hours of supervised training/coaching.                                          One such example of an elite Cadet in Fiji is 15yr old Carolyn Li who has recently become the first Fijian girl to gain selection to the Oceania Team for the World Cadet Challenge Finals to be held in Tokyo this October. Carolyn is no stranger to International competition and has managed to balance her academic studies with intensive training sessions whilst developing self confidence and social awareness through sports science and competition."                            Of course academic studies will take precedence as young Carolyn also aims to acheive academic excellence and fortunately with modern education becoming more project research based, with much work being completed "on-line" this young lady feels confident that sports will only enhance her academic abilities and achievements."

The first World Championships age group is currently for the under 15yrs, but moves are afoot for an under 12s World Championship with an ITTF  World "hopes" team of althletes born after 1997 already selected for the 2009 season.

Reilly says; "this means Development funds should be available for Fiji's Elite Cadet hopefulls, whereas funding was previously only available for the Senior National team, there is so much natural talent, here in the West of Fiji and no young athletes from the whole of Oceania have been nominated to date for ITTF's "World Hopes" (under 12's) Team.

 Every sport needs to look toward grass-roots development as these young athletes are Fiji's future!!!!!!!"   CONTACT US if you would like to see more detailed Fiji and district/schools ratings published here!!