players umpire

Table tennis players umpire own games

French Polynesia didn’t find the table tennis as easy as it did in Noumea, and New Caledonia snatched the women’s gold.

Tipped for a win by many, P-NG’s fighting team with Bill Jones made things tough in the men’s matches and Fiji and New Caledonia made the going hard for the Polynesian women.

Staged indoors at the Murray Bar racks, form generally wasn’t brilliant, with the exception of a couple of lively NG and French Polynesia players. Poor crowds attended and referees and scorers followed suit in later games in the series when they didn’t appear for matches they were supposed to control.

Players frequently called for “volunteer” umpires and often (par ticularly with Fiji and NG women’s teams) players found themselves in volved in matches with team mates from opposing teams scoring—a poor show.

Few Islanders

The Solomons, who sported one Chinese team member aged 42, un luckily lost both games by small margins, and their lack of competi tion in Honiara was evident. Simi larly, Fiji’s men just missed winning some games. Guam had two decent singles men but its doubles pairs didn’t combine.

European and Chinese players, who have had most chances to use the sparse club table facilities available in Islands territories, dominated play, with no actual Islanders appearing as bright prospects. Until the facilities are made available for Islanders in spots such as Suva, Honiara or Vila, this trend will continue.

At Tahiti, seven instead of three gold medals will be awarded for table tennis under new sections to be intro duced —this should be an incentive for more territories to £et in the shoot.