by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor.
At the Championships, the Executive Board of the European Table Tennis Union announced that Stag International will be the title sponsor and equipment supplier for the European Youth Championships in the next four years, from 2017-2020.
In addition, the company will be the title sponsor and equipment supplier for the first ever European Under 21 Championships to be held February 2017 in Sochi, Russia.
The agreement was signed on Saturday 22nd October by Ronald Kramer and Vivek Kohli, the Chair of Stag International.
Additionally, the Belarus Table Tennis Federation signed a memorandum for cooperation for the next four years with the Tibhar; the company will supply clothing for the national teams as well as supporting the Belarus Open.
Vladimir Amarin, the President of the Belarus Table Tennis Federation and Roland Berg, the Director of the Tibhar company, signed the agreement.
Notably earlier in the week Croatia’s Ivo Goran Munivrana was returned as Deputy President with Denmark’s Dorte Darfelt likewise retaining the position of Vice-President for Finance.
Newly elected to the Executive Board were: Portugal’s Pedro Moura, Romania’s Cristinel Romanescu, Germany’s Heike Ahlert, the Czech Republic’s Nikolas Endal and Finland’s Sonja Grefberg.
Meanwhile, newly elected European representatives in the ITTF Board of Directors are Heike Ahlert, Dorte Darfelt, Sonja Grefberg and Cristinel Romanescu alongside England’s Sandra Deaton, the Czech Republic’s Zdenko Kris and Sweden’s Jörgen Persson.
Additionally 2016 badges of honour were awarded to Louise Adam (France), Vladimir Beloglazov (Russia), Oivind Eriksen (Norway), Svetlana Federova (Russia), Viljar Kasemaa (Estonia), Emmanuel Kolibadis (Greece), Istvan Korpa (Germany), Li Jiao (Netherlands), Arne Madsen (Denmark), Ni Xialian (Luxembourg), Cristinel Romanescu (Romania), Karlheinz Schreiner (Germany), Branko Zbutega (Serbia) and Milorad Trpkovski (Serbia).
Also at Annual General Meeting, Belgium’s Isabel Beumier was elected Chair of the Umpires and Referees Committee whilst André Hartmann, President of the Luxembourg Table Tennis Federation, presented situation for the 2017 European Championships to be held from Wednesday 13th to Sunday 17th September at the d’Coque, indoor arena in Kirchberg, Luxembourg.