Notícia

INTERVIEW: BRAZILIAN NATIONAL TEAM'S COORDINATOR

Por CBTM

CBTM: When have you start playing Table Tennis?

Wei: Since six year-old I train Table Tennis in China. At seven, I started to train professionally. There, I already was National Champion and worked with the sport for 47 years.

CBTM: When do you start training the National Team?

Wei: Since 1994.

CBTM: How do you felt when you arrived here?

Wei: At that time, I worked as technician in Japan, and the president of the Japanese Confederation, Mr. Yaoita, asked me to go to Brazil to work with the Brazilian Tennis Table. I worked the entire life for the sport and didn't care with the long distance between Brazil and China. I decided to come here. I find out that Brazil is a very good place to work with the Table Tennis because we have base. When I was a little boy, I already knew who was the brazilian player Biriba, very famous in China because he had already earned the Chinese World Cup.

CBTM: Your family came together with you? Wei: My family is living in Brazil. Only my oldest daughter came back to China to study professional piano. Here, she was national champion of her category. My second daughter lives in Brazil and studies piano too. My youngest son likes table tennis very much and is already training at Itaim Keiko Club (in São Paulo), where the technician and athletes help him very much.

CBTM: Did you have any problems when you came to Brazil? What you find most important to the Brazilian Tennis Table improvement?

Wei: I didn't have many difficulties when I arrived here. I brought many theories of China for my technician's profession. It made everything easy because in Brazil we have many possibilities. I think if everybody in the sport - Confederation, Federations, clubs, family, athletes, technicians, directors - get united we would improve our performance. At the same time, we need to raise the level of the technicians and the practice and theory of that ones. Thus, stimulate more and more people to practice this sport. In China, each school, each company, each park, has its proper places reserved for Table Tennis.

CBTM: How many times have you been champion?

Wei: In China, I played at a military team, the greatest and stronger team of China. We had Wang Tao, Wang Hao, Li Zhen Si, Ma Lin, Tong Ling, all of them world champions. At that time, I was one of the best too. In Brazil, I already took the National Team to participate of many championships: World Cup, Pan American, Latin American... and we gained many gold medals. Even I was champion of the Veterans category, in the 2005 Latin American.

CBTM: Any unforgettable moment in the sport?

Wei: I could never forget 1996, when I took the athlete Hugo Hoyama to Atlanta Olympics games. He won the Individual World Cup champion, Persson. That always was one of my great dreams: to overtake great level athletes.

CBTM: What are your future purposes?

Wei: One of my great dreams is the Pan American of 2007. Although we will find some difficulties - many countries possess Chinese players - I have much confidence to gain this battle. I say that with the experience of someone who already was an athlete of high level in China. It is this weapon that I will use to win. If I go along as a technician, I would like to participate of the 2008 Olympics in China. It is a way to increase our interchange with China and the World, and, thus, to learn more. Therefore, we need to learn with will... to arrive at the high world-wide standard.