Para-table tennis prepares to hand out its first medals

Zhou Ying of China celebrates after beating Borislava Peric of Serbia in the final match of the Women's WIC4 Table Tennis event at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games © • Getty Images

The London 2012 Paralympic Games also sees the return of class 11 for the first time since Sydney, adding two more gold medals to the table tennis event with men’s and women’s singles events.

At the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games the home team were the most dominant scooping 13 gold medals from the tournament. They were followed by France who have struggled to keep up with the Chinese in recent years. China’s women in particular dominated the Beijing games winning eight of the 12 medals available.

The London 2012 Paralympic Games also sees the return of class 11 for the first time since Sydney, adding two more gold medals to the table tennis event with men’s and women’s singles events.

In the men’s singles class 7, Will Bayley is a definite one to watch competing in his first Paralympic games. He is currently ranked world number 2 and is really looking forward to playing on home soil.

He said: “It’s going to be all the clichés everyone says it is playing in front of a home crowd”.

Bayley is exceptionally confident coming into a home games and says that complacency and laziness are foreign concepts to him (he trains for seven hours every day). Bayley worked strongly through all his matches only dropping one game in his semifinal to Maxym Nikolenko of Ukraine.

In class 10 one of China’s gold medal favourites is Ge Yang. Ge won two gold medals back at his home games in 2008 in both singles and team class 9-10, adding to the two bronze medals he won at Athens four years prior. Although nothing is set in stone China’s most successful male table tennis Paralympian is one of their strongest gold medal hopes.

In the women’s singles class 1-2 there is a repeat of the gold medal final from four years ago, as China’s defending champion Liu Jing takes on Pamela Pezzutto of Italy. The road to the gold medal final has not been smooth for either athlete as Liu dropped a game in each of her previous matches and Pezzutto dropped two games in her second match of the tournament.

Another repeat of Beijing is also on the cards in the women’s singles class 4 with China again defending the title. Zhou Ying will defend her title against former wheelchair basketball player Borislava Peric-Rankovic who won the silver back in 2008.

In the men’s singles class 3 Feng Panfeng of China will defend his title against the class 3 champion of the Atlanta 1996 Paralympic Games. Zlatko Kesler of Serbia has won a medal at every single Paralympic games since Barcelona 1992 apart from Beijing 2008, and certainly has experience over his opponent. The momentum however remains with Feng who breezed through his quarter and semi-final rounds.

In men’s singles class 6 defending champion Peter Rosenmeier has fallen into the bronze medal match but progressing into the Gold medal match is former class 8 champion Alvaro Valera who won his gold medal back in Sydney. Since then he achieved class 7 bronze in Beijing, and hopes to improve in his new classification.

In the women’s class 8 the French Thu Kamkasomphou is back to defend her title, and in class 5 Gu Gai of China is hoping to do one better than she did at home by getting her first Paralympic gold medal.

China also lead the way in the men’s singles classes 5, 9, and 10, posting at least one athlete in each gold medal final, all desperate for a Paralympic gold medal. Ma Lin competing in class 9 is especially desperate after coming so close at his home games winning a silver medal. Ma has remained on top in the interim staying at the summit of the world ranking list and day 4 could be the day he goes one better than Beijing.