Argentina’s Liu Song emerged as the champion in the table tennis
events at the 12th Ramadan Games held at the Armed Forces Officers Club
in Abu Dhabi from Monday 15th to Friday 19th September 2008.
However, he didn’t have matters all his own way.
In
the first stage of proceedings he was beaten by Egypt’s Mohamed
El-Beyali, finishing in second place in his group, then in the second
stage he was a group runner up once again, this time losing to Ahmed
Ali Saleh, also from Egypt.
A total of 32 players from China, Greece, Romania, Argentina,
Brazil, Nigeria, India, Iran, Poland, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon,
Sudan, Palestine and the United Arab Emirates took part in the five day
tournament.
Organisation
The
players were drawn originally into eight groups with four players in
each group the top two qualifying for the second stage where there were
four groups with four players in each group; the top two progressing to
play on a knock-out basis for position one to eight with those
finishing in third and fourth places in each group competing for places
nine to sixteen.
Under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh
Mansour Ben Zayed Al-Nahyan It was the third time that table tennis had
been included in the Ramadan Games.
Past Winners
Both
China’s Yang Li, the winner in 2006 and the 2007 winner, Brazil’s
Thiago Monteiro took part; Yang Li finished in ninth position with
Thiago Monteiro having to withdraw, suffering an injury when playing
El-Sayed Lashin of Egypt
ITTF Pro Tour Envisaged
Lt/Colonel
Khaled AL-Qattan, Deputy President of the United Arab Emirates Table
Tennis Association and the head of Organizing Committee for the table
tennis tournament was very pleased that more and more high ranking
players were entering each year and plans to host an ITTF Pro Tour
tournament in 2010.
Prize Fund
A
total prize fund of 185,000 derhams (approximately US$50,000) was on
offer, $10,000 more than last year with the final order being as
follows (amounts are in derhams):
Source: www.ittf.com
