From May 13, held at Wando Jungang Elementary School
[Wando＝Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Kyung-pil] The ‘62nd Jeollanam-do Sports Festival,’ a sports festival for the unity of 2 million Jeollanam-do residents, will be held in Wando-gun for four days from May 12 to 15.
According to the county on the 9th, the organizing committee of the 62nd Jeollanam-do Sports Festival is introducing the rules and viewing points of each of the 24 events every week so that spectators can enjoy the competitions more interestingly.
The 16th Wando County Mayor's Cup Table Tennis Tournament held last September [Photo provided by Wando County]
The event to be introduced this time is ‘table tennis,’ a competition where players hit a small, light ball back and forth with rackets on a table tennis table of a certain standard size.
Table tennis is a sport that can be enjoyed anytime, anywhere, regardless of weather or season, by people of all ages and genders. Two or four players use rackets to hit the ball over the net on the table tennis table to compete.
The table tennis competition of the 62nd Jeonnam Sports Festival will be held for three days from May 13 to 15 at Wando Jungang Elementary School, with about 150 players from 22 cities and counties participating. The tournament-style men’s team event and women’s individual event will be conducted in a best-of-five games format.
The participants consist of up to seven players excluding the manager and coach (6 men, 1 woman). Eligibility requires being a native of Jeollanam-do and completing registration for the provincial sports festival within the designated period. Players from other provinces’ professional, workplace, military, or school teams, as well as players registered in central event teams, are not allowed to participate.
Referees consist of one main referee and one assistant referee per match.
In the 61st competition held in 2022, the men’s team event in table tennis was won by Gwangyang (1st place), followed by Suncheon (2nd place), with Naju and Hampyeong sharing 3rd place. In the women’s individual event, Haenam took 1st place, Goheung 2nd, and Naju and Gangjin shared 3rd place.
In the 58th competition, the men’s team event was won by Gwangyang (1st place), Suncheon (2nd place), and Yeosu and Goheung shared 3rd place. The women’s individual event was won by Goheung (1st place), followed by Suncheon (2nd place), with Naju and Hwasun taking 3rd place.
The competitions were canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.
In the 62nd competition, the viewing points include whether Gwangyang City, which has won consecutive championships in the men’s team event, can win again, and whether Suncheon, which has been runner-up consecutively, can succeed in a revenge match.
Also, the steady performances of Naju and Yeosu, which have consistently placed in the top ranks every year, are worth watching.
The host, Wando-gun, had a disappointing result of being eliminated in the first round of the preliminaries at the 58th competition in 2019, but achieved 5th place in the team event and joint 5th place in the individual event at the 61st competition in 2022. Therefore, it is expected to achieve better results by leveraging the advantage of being the host in the 62nd competition.
Meanwhile, as Wando-gun is hosting the provincial sports festival and the disabled sports festival for the first time since its establishment, it is doing its best to create a festival of unity for residents by gathering the capabilities of 50,000 residents and to revitalize the local economy, which has been depressed due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Kyung-pil ckp6737@asiae.co.kr
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