Zitat:
Zitat von Benjy
On the other hand, can you bring proof that the changes really were good?
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Yes of course I can bring proof. First, what was the main objective of the 40mm ball and the 11 points games? The main objective was to make Table Tennis more TV friendly. Did we achieve that?
- In 1992 in Barcelona Olympics Table tennis ranked by IOC 24th out of 26 sports as far as TV viewers worldwide are concerned
- In 2004 in Athens, the IOC ranked TT 5th out of 28 sports
- For 2008, we have only partial results and statistics but already based on this partial results TT is ranked 4th out of 28 sports (we hope to end up even higher).
Before the year 2000 the ITTF did not have any major non-table tennis sponsors. Now we have Volkswagen, Liebherr, China Unicom, etc. They must realize that TT is more visible and provides a good investment.
In 1999 we had 175 member national association, now we have 205.
A player from Paraguay reached the semi-final at the ITTF World Cadet Challenge last week, this same player was undefeated in the Team events beating players from Korea, Japan, France, England, etc. At the same event, in the World Junior category a player from Egypt reached the final. Would that be possible 10 years ago?
If we used your comparative method to measure progress, then the USA should have elected 2 presidents, divided the USA population in 2, have each half follow one president and after 4 years decide who did better. I prefer to measure progress and improvemnet by comparing the state of affairs at one period in time, with the state of affairs, using the same criteria, in another period in time. This is more practical, don't you think?
In any case, I have to agree with you that any measure of success remains a question of statistics and opinions. My statistics show that ITTF influenced in improving our sport, and my opinion is unfortunately biased, I am the president of the ITTF after all.
Adham