The highlight for the 13 strong British squad at the ITTF PARA TT World Championships recently held in Korea was the bronze medal for Jane Campbell and Sara Head in the Class 3 Women’s Wheelchair Team event. They lost to Italy 1-3 ( including two 9-11 fifth game losses) in the semi final before taking on France in the Play off for the Bronze medal. Jane and Sara won 3-2 with the doubles going their way 13-11 in the fifth. This is their first World medal having gained an European bronze last year.

Sue Gilroy and Claire Robertson finished fourth in the Class 4 Women’s Wheelchair Team event losing to Slovenia 1-3 in the bronze medal playoff, having lost to Serbia in the semi-final.

Paul Davies and Rob Davies in the Class1/2 Mens Wheelchair Team event and Will Bayley, Paul Karabardak and Joe Stotesbury in the Mens Class 6/7 Standing Team event reached the quarter-final.

In the singles, six players went out in the quarter-finals – Cathy Mitton – Class 1/2 Womens Wheelchair; Jane Campbell – Class 3 Women’s Wheelchair ; Sue Gilroy – Class 4 Women’s Wheelchair; Scott Robertson – Class 5 Men’s Wheelchair; Will Bayley – Class 7 Men’s Standing and Kim Daybell – Class 10 Men’s Standing while two others reached the last 16- Claire Robertson – Class 4 Women’s Wheelchair and Paul Karabardak – Class 7 Men’s Standing.

To have 12 out of 17 reach the final stages was an excellent all round achievement for the squad led by Gorazd Vecko backed up by Head Coach Greg Baker and National Coaches Matt Kenny and Neil Robinson.

China dominated the championships with 13 golds out of 32.

Peter Taylor – Chairman of BTTAD , the National Governing Body for Para TT – who accompanied the Team – commented “Our target was 1-3 medals and although we only came away with one medal, the performance of the team was encouraging. As one would expect at the world championships, the standard was very high and eight quarter-final places and two semi-final places show we are getting closer to the top players. Our coaching team has identified what the focus needs to be over the next two years and our target of 3-5 medals at London 2012 is achievable.”