Gangneung: Eleven European Players Learn Asian Speed in Ten Days

In ten days, eleven European players trained, ate and slept in the same hall as the national teams of Korea, Japan and Chinese Taipei. No scoreboard was published. No player was named. Two friendly matches were played on 5 and 8 September; the results were never released. That is nearly everything the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) gave the public about its joint training camp in Gangneung, Korea.

People called me a traitor in 2026, but I was only looking further ahead than a former teammate. A press release with no numbers is usually not worth writing about. The way Europe chooses its training partners is.

The Asia–Europe joint training programme has now passed through three host venues: Jeju Island in Korea, the Czech city of Havířov, and now Gangneung. The current cycle is scheduled by ETTU from December 2026 to spring 2027. The number of participating associations has grown from one to four: Europe, Korea, Japan and Chinese Taipei. This camp closed on 12 September. Immediately afterwards, the young players stayed in Gangneung for the WTT Youth Contender, a youth ranking event on the WTT calendar.

What stands out is that the camp carries no ranking points, no prize money and no place in any official competition structure. It produces no champion. It produces time.

For a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old, the most expensive thing is not an entry into a tournament. It is standing at the same table as someone who hits faster, spins harder and makes life more uncomfortable, a year earlier than their peers. The value of the Gangneung camp lies less in the technique being taught than in the tempo being absorbed — and tempo cannot be bought with broadcast money.

Based on my experience following matches and training sessions, I once sat in the corridor of an Asian table tennis hall and listened to the ball bounce as thick as rain on a tin roof. A physical session there outlasts an official match. Europeans do not lack technique; they lack hours spent handling the ball with legs already heavy. Ten days in Gangneung will not close that gap, but it shows young players how wide the gap is — something video never does.

Spectators often mistake a spectacular counter-looping rally for a high-level match. At the development level, what decides is not the best rally but control of position and rhythm. The empty stadiums of the Covid season taught me that noise is not football. A quiet training camp in Gangneung teaches the same lesson about table tennis: most of the work happens before anyone is in the stands.

One detail in the list of four associations is worth pausing on: China is absent. The simplest explanation is logistics. Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei sit among the strongest systems outside China, and their training schedules and facilities are easier to arrange for a short camp. Europe is looking for the strongest partners it can meet regularly, not the strongest on paper. Gangneung does not create new players; it exposes slow table tennis nations.

There is a second layer, rarely discussed. A ten-day camp for eleven people — travel, accommodation and coaching coordination included — costs far less than a short-term broadcast rights package. At a time when digital platforms outbid each other for rights and post losses, ETTU putting money into practice halls is a rare decision with a plausible return. Money spent on images is gone; hours spent against better players stay in the athlete's hands.

Where I may be wrong. This entire piece rests on a press release without data. The identities of the eleven players are not given, the results of the two friendlies are not given, and the technical content of the camp is not given. The ETTU vice president spoke only of training quality and cultural value, two categories a scoreboard cannot measure. If the coaching staff only wanted the players to taste a national-team atmosphere, ten days could leave them beaten up with nothing learned. A camp that publishes no results is like a match without a score: anyone can claim to have won.

My prediction, in verifiable form: within three years, the youth national-team lists of at least two of the four participating associations will include players who attended this programme. If the WTT Youth Contender in Gangneung ends with no European camper reaching the final rounds, the camp's value remains rhetorical.

I am old now, but I am fast enough to understand that the slow will disappear. And nobody calls me a traitor anymore. They call me the one who arrived first.