Next up, grassroots development

After the successful staging of the 2004 Marianas Friendship Table Tennis Tournament, Steven Lim said he would now turn his sights in grassroots development for the indoor sport.

The president of the Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association said the recent tournament unfortunately showed that most of the ping-pong enthusiasts in the CNMI are nonresidents and it would not serve the Commonwealth well if it remains that way.

“The next thrust for myself and MATTA is to develop a grassroots program that will groom the next generation of table tennis players. Because without this, the CNMI faces eligibility issues,” he said.

Lim noted that the rules of the world governing body for the sport—the International Table Tennis Federation—restricts a lot of the CNMI’s better players from representing the islands simply because they are not considered citizens of the Commonwealth.

He said in order to be able to represent the Commonwealth in regional and even international table tennis competitions players must either be U.S. citizens or must have immediate relative (IR) status.

“Sadly, almost all the players of the tournament have neither,” said Lim.

On the upside, Lim said the South Pacific Games is adopting its own eligibility rules and will not enforce the restrictive rules of world governing bodies such as the ITTF.

“So, this opens a small window of opportunity for some of the players who may have the necessary qualifications to be eligible.”

Aside from the SPG, Lim said table tennis players could also join other regional tournaments. He said the grouping the CNMI belongs to in this particular region of the world for table tennis is the Oceania championships.

Lim said success in that tournament would allow qualification for Olympic competition or even in the world championships. But since the Commonwealth is not yet part of the Olympic movement, aspiring ping-pong players on the island could only “aspire” as high as the level of the world championships.

The MATTA president, however, said he still doesn’t know about the qualifications in the world championships—if whether they would be using the strict ITTF eligibility requirements or a more relaxed one.

Whatever the decision of the international governing body, the SPG, or the world championships, Lim said MATTA should now start to develop new players for the sake of table tennis in the Commonwealth.

“There is pretty much no recourse but to train a new generation of children in the sport and hope that they sustain their drive and commitment to table tennis until the time they can represent the CNMI in regional and international competitions,” said Lim.