Fiji Conducts Successful Basic Certified Umpires Course

Submitted by TemoL on Tue, 31/08/2010 - 8:58am

Lautoka, a city situated in the west of Fiji’s main island of Viti Levu, hosted a Basic Umpires Course from Monday 23rd to Wednesday 25th August.

The course was organised under the auspices of the Oceania-ITTF Development Programme.

Australia’s Dave Delpratt was the expert on duty.

There were no less than 25 participants on the course, a record for Oceania; of these 25 participants, 18 qualified, a very pleasing result and underlines the teaching ability of Dave Delpratt.

In common with all courses related to the ITTF Development Programme, enthusiasm was high.

Immediately following the Basic Umpires Course is the Fiji Open Championships which will be organised from Thursday 26th to Sunday 29 August, this will give the successful course participants the perfect springboard to further practice their umpiring skills.

“It was wonderful to see so many people attending”, said Mr Delpratt. “Students included many juniors, as well as a number of local school teachers; this augers well for the future of table tennis in Fiji and in particular Lautoka.”

Equally, Anthony Ho, Fiji Table Tennis Association President was upbeat.

“Having more umpires is vital to the improvement of any sport, rather than just focusing solely on the athletes and high performance programmes”, he said.
“We also need to focus on increasing the number of umpires and match officials; this course played a crucial role in improving the profile of table tennis in Fiji and we are happy that such a high percentage of people were able to pass the course.”

Another successful course for the Oceania Development Program to start what will be a busy two and a half weeks of table tennis in Lautoka.

In addition to the Basic Certified Umpires Course and the Fiji Open Championships, an ITTF/PTT Level One Coaches Course will be carried out through Olympic Solidarity.