African number one Table Tennis player, Quadri Aruna has raised concerns over the clash in the schedule of the 2023 African Games and the 2024 Singapore Smash Event.
The 13th African Games is scheduled for 8th to 23rd March 2024 in Ghana while the Singapore Smash Event is billed for 7th to 17th March 2024.
Aruna appealed to the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and World Table Tennis (WTT) to prevail on the African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) in order to play the Table Tennis event at the African Games between 15th to 23rd March.
The Commonwealth Silver medallist said, “The African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) has made the move to play during Singapore smash events and this means that several African players that qualified for Singapore smash won’t be able to participate.
“African players are begging the ITTF and WTT to look into this issue and help convince the ATTF to appeal to the organisers of the African Games to move the Table Tennis event from the planned date to 15th to 23rd March.
The Singapore Smash Event is as big as the World Championships and everyone is always excited to participate. The players do not want to get injured with the tight schedule and miss Singapore events at the same time. We want to play at the Singapore Smash Event first before heading to the African Games”.
“It will definitely look so bad for our sports if no player from Africa participates in this year’s Singapore smash”.
The African champion revealed that the schedule of the African Games will cause injuries to several African players who are aiming to participate in this year’s Olympic Games in Paris.
He said, “The schedule of African games will cause injuries to several African players and we are in the Olympic year which is super important for all athletes to stay without injuries.”
This is because there are seven events in African games and all of these events are scheduled to be played in just seven days.
“There is an option to play on other dates but the excuse is that there will be four sports in just one venue. The African Games was postponed last year because facilities were not ready and having four sports in just one venue still means facilities are not fully ready. It is very possible to play from 15th to 23rd March because African Games is from early March.
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