Olympic European Qualification Tournament

[Hovis Bread Eater]

First round Results

Gavin Rumgay beat Thomas Keinath (former German International) now playing for Slovakia, Gavin won -8,-4,11,3,-5,8,6

Adam Robertson lost to Alex Karakasevic -6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8

Paul Drinkall lost to Christophe Legout 10, 9, -10, 4, -5, 5

Link to the web site is:

http://www.nantes-pekin-ping2008.fr/

[Mr Wilko]

drinkall is a busy man these days but legout is a quality player!!!!!

[RoryScott]

Stop Press! Paul Drinkhall won his remaining 2 group matches including a win vs no. 70 in world & Legout lost 1. Paul finished 1st in the group on a 3 way count back!

[Hovis Bread Eater]

Legout lost to Slobodan Grujic and Paul beat Grujic 4-0. Grujic was European cadet and Youth Champion and is a quality player.

[HarryBelafonte]

so is drinkhall......:thumbsup:can he fulfill his potential

[DaveR]

European Olympic Singles Qualifying Tournament ....Nantes / France ............
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Results Mens

Pdf Doc .............HERE (http://www.nantes-pekin-ping2008.fr/en/resultats/Stage%204_Men_4.pdf)
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Womems Results

Pdf Doc..............HERE (http://www.nantes-pekin-ping2008.fr/en/resultats/Stage%204_Women_4.pdf)

[DaveR]

It seems British teenager Paul Drinkhall was unable to secure a place at the Beijing Olympics today as he lost to Poland's Daniel Gorak at the European Table Tennis qualifying tournament in Nantes.

http://images.sportinglife.com/08/04/330/Paul_Drinkhall_2008_766064.jpg

However, the 18-year-old will have another shot in another knockout round in stage two when he can progress further after falling at the first hurdle, which we all hope happens so good luck to Paul!

The Qualifiers were as follows............


Men:
TAN Rui Wu (HRV)
Jens LUNDQVIST (SWE)
Robert GARDOS (AUT)
Bojan TOKIC (SVN)
Christian SUSS (GER)
CHEN Weixing (AUT)
Panagiotis GIONIS (GRE)
Joao MONTEIRO (POR)
Christophe LEGOUT (FRA)
Patrick CHILA (FRA)
Fedor KUZMIN (RUS)


Women:
Viktoria PAVLOVICH (BLR)
LI Jie (Ned)
HU Melek (TUR)
Elizabeta SAMARA (ROM)
Svetlana GANINA (RUS)
XIAN Yi Fang (FRa)
XU Jie (POL)
Sandra PAOVIC (HRV)
ZHU Fang (ESP)
LI Quianbing (AUT)
TAN MONFARDINI Wenling (ITA)

The final chance to qualify will be in Budapest at the World Qualification tournament where the top two players will qualify...........good luck.

[Loopy]

When you look at the competition lets face it Paul is up against it as are many, but good luck to him i do like to support the British.

[Mr Wilko]

Jens Lundqvist is a top quality player and a top bloke we had a good laugh when we played them in european league in spain, he played on same team as Eloi and that chinese bloke who had just got a silver medal (stated in best players thread )he aint shy in going to the bar neither but i think he realised Ed was!!!! ha ha

[DaveR]

Drinkhall Interview ................. Dissapointed but not over.

TEENAGE table tennis star Paul Drinkhall is optimistic about the future, despite missing an opportunity to win a place at the Beijing Olympics.
The 18-year-old admits to being disappointed after the European Olympic Qualification tournament in Nantes, France.
But Paul says that after serving up some good displays in the championship he is not too downhearted.
“I played pretty well in France but I think I could have done better,” he said.

Drinkhall, from Loftus, had three opportunities to clinch one of the 11 places for Beijing after progressing from the group stages.
But in each case he found himself drawn against players ranked much higher than him in the world placings and was defeated in the knock-out stages by Poland’s Daniel Gorak, France’s Damien Eloi and Russia’s Fedor Kuzmin.

A great group match win over the Serbian Slobodan Grujic, however, will have boosted Paul’s world ranking and given him renewed confidence.
“I think I probably played the best I have ever played in that match,” Paul said.
“He (Grujic) doesn’t make many mistakes and is really hard to beat. I think I was playing well after that match. I just maybe didn’t get up to the level I was at in that game,” he said.

Paul will now compete for one of the remaining Olympic places at the World Qualifying Tournament in Budapest, which starts on May 8.
And after only just missing out in France, Paul says he will go to Hungary full of confidence with his sights set on a summer trip to Beijing.
“I’ve got the World Championships in Budapest in May coming up now.
“I’m training towards that and if I play as well as I can, I can hopefully do well,” he said.

We wish him success.

[DaveR]

http://www.sportfocus.com/newsimage/top1012.jpg


As part of the Olympic Dreams programme, the BBC followed Paul Drinkhall to Nantes for the European Olympic Qualifying Tournament, this will be featured in the next series which is due to be aired in July. In the meantime you can enjoy a photographic summary of the events in France by clicking here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/london_2012/7354513.stm).