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Oman players improve skill levels, says coach Atoum

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Muscat, Feb 11 - Oman table tennis coach Mohammad Amin Atoum feels Oman players have improved in terms of their skill levels in the last three years.  The former Jordan national team coach Atoum said it was in 2015 that Oman table tennis was given a new direction in terms of planning and strategy. “Actually as you know and everybody knows in Oman, it was in 2014 that Ministry of Sports Affairs set up the OTTC... before that time it was a without a committee or federation.


I arrived in November 2015... that’s when we started planning for the future and develop from the grassroots.”


Atoum said the establishment of training centres had greatly helped the cause of Oman.


“We thought the best way is to have training centres, so now we have around nine training centres in Oman... all of them are active. There are good players.


Hopefully now we will have some more players... we are in the right direction... in the near future we will compete,’’ he added. Talking about the development of Oman players in the last few years, Atoum said they have made it steady progress.


“Last year we organised the West Asia Challenge..that time our players were at the bottom. Now, this year we had a camp in Jordan in January we sent one player. The player stood sixth out of 12 players..we are progressing... we still hope that we will have much more activities.


“This tournament: As you know, this is one of the top 10 tournaments worldwide..we are lucky because there are some top Chinese players and some good Indian players. Last month in Luzembourg at a Grand Final, the runner up was from India, some from Egypt,’’ Atoum added.


Our players are just learning..they just participated in Arab Championships…this year it will be in August in Egypt...watching and observing from other Chinese players.


During these tournaments it is about education for the players like how they prepare and play their game. It is all about exposure..I believe in that.


The standard of the players participating here was something Atoum dwelt upon. “They are really in the top, we have 114 players..we have about 50-60 coaches..parents and officials and journalists..200 people here.


They represent 19 countries. We will play against different styles, For sure, it helps. Atoum stated patience was something that was really important in terms of his learning curve.


“We have to be patient. We want to see…what you can do. We won against Qatar 3-2. In Cadet category, When you compete with teams like Qatar, who are on a better level, we improve naturally,’’ he added. Atoum also felt the feedback from the players, coaches and officials was pretty good.


“We had training camp with Qatar in China. The same coaches and players were there..they are saying in seven months our players have improved a lot. We have good senior players who will guide the youngsters,’’ he said.


Atoum also stressed on the fact that as coaches they have to be updated in terms of the technique.


Haridev Pushparaj


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