LIAM PITCHFORD LOOKS AHEAD TO THIS THIRD OLYMPIC GAMES
It’s been an extremely long and disrupted journey to get here, but Chesterfield’s table tennis maestro Liam Pitchford finally has his place assured in the Team GB squad ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The 27 year-old can now look ahead to what will be his third Olympic Games and what will undoubtedly be the most unique one he’s experienced so far. The Derbyshire man is one of only two table tennis representatives for Team GB in this month’s Tokyo Games. Pitchford is joined by London’s Tin-Tin Ho and both will just be competing in the singles events, so there is no chance this year of doubles success, which puts further pressure on Pitchford to perform strongly from the very start.
The upcoming Olympics is a strange one to predict for the Derbyshire man. The Commonwealth gold medallist and multi-time national champion was in the form of his life last year when the initially scheduled Olympics was just a few months away. Before the pandemic broke out, it really looked like Pitchford could claim to be a dark horse in the Team GB squad to win a medal. A medal which would be of huge significance considering the UK does not receive much financial support when it comes to table tennis, plus the fact this is a sport that, historically, Britain do not gain success in on the world stage.
When you think of Team GB’s outstanding successes in Olympic events since lottery funding came into place, the sports that naturally come into people’s minds are cycling, rowing and athletics. Table tennis simply doesn’t feature; a sport widely seen as being dominated by China and a novelty sport that gets its five minutes of fame for every four year cycle before being put back onto the shelf. It’s a real shame, considering how fun a spectator sport table tennis really is and the sport really deserves more media coverage in the UK.
All the sport needs is a breakthrough Olympics performance and the closest Britain have come to that is in the form of Liam Pitchford. After a debut Games as a teenager in London where there was understandably no real expectations set for him and a satisfactory performance in the Rio Games, there was real belief in early 2020 that Pitchford was reaching a level in his game that could seriously lead to him being a medal contender for Tokyo. The Chesterfield man was claiming notable scalps and was becoming a particularly difficult opponent to beat in big ranking tournaments.
As we all know, everything about 2020 changed drastically very quickly. Table tennis had no choice but to pause everything as the pandemic took hold and Pitchford’s momentum came to a screeching halt as the Tokyo Games was postponed until the next year. The sport has taken a long time to get back into the swing of things as restrictions began to be lifted across the world; in fact, with the lack of competitions, many would say the sport is still recovering from the effects of Covid-19. Everyone’s preparations has been far from ideal; Pitchford is no exception. Trying to recapture the excellent form shown in late 2019 and early 2020 has been very tough to achieve and Pitchford didn’t actually achieve qualification for the Tokyo Games from a performance in an event:
“In the end, I got in by world ranking. I ended up skipping one of the tournaments in advance of the Games as I kind of knew that I was pretty much assured of an Olympics spot via my ranking for a while now.”
Whilst admitting it was difficult to start from scratch and try to get back to his best form, Pitchford appears satisfied with his form with the Games now finally approaching:
“I’m definitely in a better place now than what I was earlier this year. Last year, the first national lockdown came at a time when my form was great. I felt like I was in the form of my life back then. Once the first lockdown came into effect, I wasn’t even able to pick up my bat for about a month and a half. It was very tricky trying to get back into it once some of the restrictions started to be lifted. Not many tournaments have gone ahead in this sport since the pandemic began. So, yeah, it’s been a very tricky tournament to prepare for. Considering the tournament begins in around three weeks, I do feel like I’m in a pretty good place.”
I asked Liam whether the fact he has two Olympics experiences under his belt already would help him to not be over-awed by the occasion in Tokyo and allows him the best chance to maintain his focus:
“Yeah, for sure. In London, I didn’t really have any expectations. I was there because we had an automatic host nation place. It was good to have that kind of experience very early on in my career. In Rio, there was a bit more expectation on me and now, of course, for Tokyo, I’m a better player now. I’m older, I’m more experienced. There is a bit more expectation on me compared to Rio, I guess. The previous Games I’ve played have definitely helped me though and gives me a better idea as to what to expect from an Olympics tournament.”
One of the truly fascinating elements of the upcoming Tokyo Games will be, for want of a better phrase, how unolympian it will all feel. Due to the obvious circumstances, crowds are not expected to be high. Only Japanese spectators are allowed from the general public and Japan’s vaccination programme is still quite some way behind compared to nations like the UK. It also can’t be ignored that the majority of the Japanese population don’t want these Games to even go ahead. With the nation’s vaccine roll-out still ambling along for an enormously dense population (particularly in the city of Tokyo), many Japanese people feel strongly that it is not safe for these Games to go ahead. All these things considered, attendances are expected to be pretty low.
For sports that are held indoors, such as table tennis, attendances could be shockingly low considering it is the actual Olympics. With sparse crowds highly expected, I asked Liam what effect that could have on his game. Would low crowds make it feel very awkward or could it actually be a blessing in disguise and take the pressure off?
“I do like playing in front of a crowd. It spurs you on, it gives you a little bit of a boost when you need it. It can feel like it can give you extra points, if you’ve got a crowd behind you. I played out in Japan for a club there for a couple of years, so I’d like to think that I will have a bit of Japanese support at the Games (obviously not if I’m playing a Japanese player!) So that would be nice if that happens. The atmosphere at Tokyo probably won’t be as good as the ones we had in Rio and in London. But you’ve just got to go out there and compete, whether there’s a big crowd there or not.”
The burning question for all British table tennis fans is whether Liam Pitchford can fully recapture the form of his life from late 2019 to early 2020. Table tennis in particular is a hugely difficult sport to predict for these Games with the preparations so heavily disrupted leading up to Tokyo and the fact that no competitor can have possibly had an ideal run-up to the games. It’s the closest you can really go into heading into an Olympics event with your eyes closed. When you add the fact that there’s so much depth in the sport and that the pace of the sport can determine very quick changes of momentum, it will be a pundit’s nightmare to make any solid predictions for how the table tennis events will pan out in Tokyo.
Liam is keeping his cards close to his chest about what he can achieve, especially with the knowledge that he only has the singles event this time around to make an impression in. Overall though, Pitchford seems satisfied with how much of his form he’s been able to recapture with the Games now just a matter of weeks away. I asked Liam whether he feels can claim a medal from this Olympics tournament:
“If you’d have asked me that at this point last year had the Games been going ahead, I’d have probably given you a different answer. With the lack of competition and lack of matches, preparation for the Games has obviously been very disrupted. But everyone is in the same boat with this. In this sport, anybody can beat anybody. I’ve beaten world number ones, I’ve beaten former Olympics champions. I know that on my day, I can beat anyone. Right now, it’s just all about preparing and doing all the right things to make sure I’m in the best shape. If I can do that, I know I can get out there and perform well.”
With the absence of so many table tennis tournaments in the past 18 months, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Liam Pitchford’s trick shot that once ended up going viral online. For those of you unlucky enough to have not witnessed Pitchford’s incredible improvisation skills, the Chesterfield man has been known to play a shot with his right hand behind his back. Considering the lightning pace of the sport, it’s a tremendously tough shot to attempt, never mind pull off successfully. It’s a shot that very few players have been seen to do in the history of the sport but whenever Pitchford has attempted it, he has always won the point in question. Liam seems to really enjoy talking about the trick shot that he’s somehow mastered; and who can blame him? As Liam points out, the shot has drawn plenty of media attention online before in a tournament outside of the Olympics. As referenced before, that’s pretty rare for table tennis to achieve in the UK. I asked Liam if he thought he could pull off the trick shot in Tokyo and if he could, how it would be received:
“I’d like to think so! I think it’s good for table tennis. My coach isn’t too happy when I play that shot. I have won the points whenever I have played that shot though! Maybe that would be a better time to play it; but at the same time, I could play it when I’m down and surprise my opponent and get back into the match, so I could mix it up.”
It will be fascinating to see how Pitchford fares in Tokyo. If the Derbyshire man can just get off to a solid start and build momentum, there’s nothing to suggest that Pitchford can’t go very deep into the tournament. It’s been a rocky preparation process for everyone but as Liam said at the very start of our chat: anybody can beat anybody in this sport.
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