Over at the Richmond Olympic Oval, the drive to pull more men, women and children into the sport of table tennis is in top gear.
The Oval houses 16 tables and earlier this year launched a development and high-performance program for the sport, with a view to nurturing and producing the next Andre Ho or Mo Zhang. It's also home to the new National Women's Table Tennis Training Centre, run by Table Tennis Canada (TTC).
As well as the more intense side of the sport, the facility's 16 tables are pretty much full every morning from Monday to Friday, said the oval's high-performance program coordinator, Taylor Sims, with an ever-growing seniors group.
"We have about 350 players playing in total, from recreation to highperformance athletes," said Sims.
"There's a good mix of recreation and development players here." In the development program for players aged six to 12, there are around 30 kids right now, said Sims, with four professional coaches watching over them.
And there are another 10 young players in the high-performance program, aged 11-16, traveling to tournaments across Canada. "The development and high-performance side of the program will take a little bit longer to grow than anything else," said Sims. As is the case with the likes of the Bridgeport Sports Club, the majority of people playing table tennis at the Oval are of Asian descent.
However, when the Oval hosts spring and summer camps, "there's a bit more variety in terms of cultural background," Sims explained. "That's also changing in the development program as well, where we're seeing more Caucasian athletes coming through."
Although the ethnic origin of the city's top table tennis players may not raise an eyebrow, what may surprise many people is the strength and conditioning work the high-performance athletes put into their development.
"It's still a little bit new to the culture of table tennis, but our highperformance athletes are involved in speed and agility training here, as these guys need to be quick and need to know all about injury prevention," added Sims.
