Table Tennis England Vice-President Gorazd Vecko has actually been honoured by his residence country of Slovenia with a Friend of Para Sport honor for his payment to table tennis.
The honor existed collectively by the Slovenian Government as well as National Paralympic Committee in acknowledgment for his job as Tournament Director of the Slovenia Para Open for twenty years as well as his accomplishments with British Para Table Tennis as Performance Director considering that 2009.
Since the Slovenia Open was initially kept in Lasko in 2003 it has actually ended up being the leading Para table tennis competition worldwide beyond the significant champions.
“My vision was to have a tournament to get international players to come to Slovenia, because we didn’t have the funding to go to tournaments,” claimed Vecko, that was influenced to come to be associated with table tennis by his papa Edward, the two-time World champ as well as six-times European champ.
“It’s been the biggest Para tournament in the world for the last 12 years, with more than 350 players and 55 to 60 countries, including China, Korea, Japan and Australia. Lasko is a village with 2,500 people, so to get all the players there is amazing.”
Since taking control of as Performance Director of British Para Table Tennis Vecko has actually developed solid web links in between his residence nation as well as the British team, with routine training school kept in Lasko on top of that to the competition.
“The Slovenia Open is like a home tournament for the British team and we can have good preparation there before the tournament starts,” he claimed.
“During lockdown, we were able to open the hotel near the sports hall and have just 25 people there so the athletes could train when they were not able to train in England. We’ve had a lot of help from Slovenia for our Performance and Pathway programmes which has been extremely valuable.”
Vecko began mentoring in 1999 as well as trained Mateja Pintar to win the initial Paralympic gold medal for Slovenia in females’s table tennis at Athens 2004. He replaced his papa as Performance Director of the Slovenian Para table tennis group as well as was hired in 2009 by British Para Table Tennis complying with a frustrating efficiency by the sporting activity in Beijing where it fell short to medal.
The remainder, as they state, is background. Four medals in London 2012 were adhered to by gold for Rob Davies (guys’s course 1) as well as Will Bayley (guys’s course 7) in Rio prior to the most effective efficiency by a British team at a Paralympic Games with 7 medals in Tokyo.
Vecko existed with his honor by the Japanese ambassador to Slovenia at a supper in Brdo, participated in by the President as well as 8 federal government preachers.
“I’m very proud to get this recognition from Slovenia,” he claimed. “It’s a special award and I’m so happy to have been part of the development of Para table tennis in my home country and in Britain over the last 20 years.”
